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ADDRESSES 

EDUCATIONAL AND PATRIOTIC 




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ADDRESSES 



EDUCATIONAL AND PATRIOTIC 



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BY 



CYRUS NORTHROP, LL. D. 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 



MINNEAPOLIS 

THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 

1910 



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COPYRIGHT 1910 
CYRUS NORTHROP 



©CU273304 



PREFACE 

These addresses are published, not because I sup- 
pose that they are a contribution to human knowl- 
edge, but simply because friends have asked me to 
publish them. Most of the addresses delivered by me 
when I was connected with Yale College were un- 
written and can not therefore be reproduced. Only 
two of the addresses in this volume belong to that 
period. Of the others, several were extemporaneous 
and they are printed in this volume as they were re- 
ported by stenographers. The address on Lincoln 
delivered at a banquet of the Loyal Legion in St. Paul, 
and the addresses on the day of President McKinley's 
funeral, at the banquet to Vice-President Eoosevelt, 
at the unveiling of the statue of Governor John S. 
Pillsbury, and at the banquet in honor of Dr. James 
K. Hosmer, were all extemporaneous. They all bear 
the marks of extemporaneous delivery, but they may 
not be on that account the less interesting. The other 
addresses in this volume were prepared for special 
occasions and I believe fitted the occasions fairly well. 
They were doubtless more interesting when delivered 
than they will be in a book published years after the 
special occasion for them has passed. But even as 
they are, I hope they may not be without interest to 
the friends for whose sake they are committed to 
print. 

CYKUS NORTHKOP. 



CONTENTS 



Yale Bicentennial Address 

The Nation's Centennial 

Eloquence and the Law 

The Legal Profession as a Conservative 

Force in Our Republic 
Inaugural Address as President of the Uni 

versity of Minnesota . . . 
The Dissemination of Educated Men 
The Education Which Our Country Needs 
Some Lessons from Our Country's History 
Some Advice to Young Physicians 
Ideals for Boys 
The Work of the Teacher 
George Washington 
Benjamin Franklin 
Three Great Presidents 
Greater Whitman College 
The Future of Our Country 
American Progress 
Agricultural Education . 



1 
25 
51 

87 

113 
142 
171 
193 
215 
231 
245 
283 
301 
321 
347 
363 
371 
393 



X CONTENTS 

Address on Agriculture 419 

James Kendall Hosmer 435 

A Kesponse 443 

Lincoln, Statesman and Orator . . . 447 

Roosevelt: The College Man in Politics. . 455 

President McKinley 459 

Acceptance of Statue of John S. Pillsbury 

for the University 465 

John Sargent Pillsbury 469 

Congratulations 475 

Memorial Day Address 481 

Commencement Address . . . . . 505 



YALE'S RELATION TO THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE COUNTRY* 

Mr. President, Brethren of Yale, Ladies and Gentle- 
men: 

The subject assigned to me, "Yale in its Relation 
to the Development of the Country," is too large for 
adequate consideration in a brief address. I shall 
omit all allusion to the moral and industrial devel- 
opment, and confine my remarks to a very brief con- 
sideration of Yale's relation to the political develop- 
ment of the country, and a somewhat more extended 
review of Yale's relation to the educational develop- 
ment. 

While Yale men have gone largely into politics 
and have done manly service in the ranks, and while 
) many of them have attained to distinguished posi- 
tions to which they have done honor and in which 
they have been influential, it is not easy to say to 
what extent the political policy of our country has 
been influenced directly by Yale. The college had 
four graduates in the convention which framed our 
National Constitution, William Samuel Johnson, 
William Livingston, Jared Ingersoll, and Abraham 
Baldwin, all of them good and able men. It has 

*Delivered at the Yale Bicentennial Celebration, New Haven, Con- 
necticut, October 22nd, 1901. 



2 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

to-day three members of the Supreme Court of the 
United States : David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings 
Brown, both of the class of 1856, and George Shiras, 
of the class of 1853. These men, all eminently 
worthy to hold the high position which they occupy, 
have been called upon to decide questions of the great- 
est importance, and their decisions have probably 
affected the policy of the country more positively and 
permanently than has any other distinctive Yale in- 
fluence. 

The great work of pacifying the Philippine 
Islands and bringing them under beneficial civil gov- 
ernment and, let us hope, preparing them for self- 
government under conditions most favorable to lib- 
erty, has very wisely been assigned to a distinguished 
graduate of Yale, Hon. William H. Taft, of the class 
of 1878. Judge Taft has done so well whatever he 
has undertaken to do, and has already so far suc- 
ceeded in bringing order out of chaos in the Philip- 
pines, as to inspire the utmost confidence in his ulti- 
mate complete success, and to awaken a conscious- 
ness in the nation that he may, at some time, be called 
to fill a higher position than he has yet attained. 

No graduate of Yale has ever been elected to the 
office of president of the United States, but the Yalen- 
sians will not complain so long as the country can 
have for its president a patriot and scholar like Theo- 
dore Koosevelt. 

A very respectable number of Yale graduates 
have been senators and representatives in Congress. 
The representatives are too numerous to mention. 
Of the senators, it will be sufficient to name John 
Caldwell Calhouu, of South Carolina; Truman Smith, 
Roger S. Baldwin, and Jabez W. Huntington, of Con- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 3 

necticut; John Davis, Julius Rockwell, and Henry L. 
Dawes, of Massachusetts; John M. Clayton and An- 
thony Higgins, of Delaware; William M. Evarts and 
Chauncey M. Depew, of New York ; George E. Badger, 
of North Carolina; Randall L. Gibson, of Louisiana; 
William Morris Stewart, of Nevada, and Frederick 
T. Dubois, of Idaho. All of these have exerted a posi- 
tive influence on either the politics or the legislation 
of the country. Most of them have been men of com- 
manding influence in the Senate, and I am glad to 
say in the language of another, "All of them have 
been honest and sincere, and in no instance have 
they betrayed the trust reposed in them." 

Yale has furnished the country with a number of 
distinguished diplomats, of whom Eugene Schuyler, 
of the class of 1859, though not the most prominent 
or distinguished, was, I think, the most distinctly 
representative. Edwards Pierrepont, of the class of 
1837, and Wayne MacVeagh and Andrew D. White, 
both of the class of 1853, are among the most dis- 
tinguished of Yale representatives at foreign courts. 

But the real history of a country is not the record 
of its great men either in war or in peace. It is 
rather an account of the development and progress 
of the people; and especially so in this country, 
where the people's will can govern and ultimately 
does govern, and where the wisest leaders, before 
they speak, listen for the voice of the people. The 
hope of the country is not in the astuteness and 
ability of its great men, but in the virtue, intelligence, 
and good sense of the great body of the people. An 
institution of learning whose influence, educational 
and ethical, has permeated the great mass of the 
people in all parts of the country, affecting alike 



4 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

their ideas, their mode of thinking, their habits of 
life, their conceptions of public and private virtue, 
of patriotism and of religion, has impressed itself 
upon the character of the nation in a more permanent 
way and with more wide-reaching results than an 
institution whose chief glory is the development of a 
few party leaders. 

Probably the man of real genius never owes his 
success entirely to his college. The greatest men of 
the world have not got their inspiration from the 
college curriculum nor the college faculty. Some 
men have been great without being trained at col- 
lege, and some have been great in spite of being 
trained at college. The glory which has been shed 
od some colleges because eminent men have graduat- 
ed there, is not to be despised; but it is largely acci- 
dental. Miami University did not make Benjamin 
Harrison; nor did Dartmouth make Daniel Web- 
ster; nor did Bowdoin make Nathaniel Hawthorne; 
nor did Yale make John C. Calhoun. These men would 
have been men of note no matter where they might 
be graduated. The spirit of man in them was a 
candle of the Lord, and they could not but shine. 

Some of the econdmic teachings of Yale, like 
those of all the colleges, have been at variance with 
the prevailing policy of the country. On no im- 
portant question of national policy has the influence 
of Yale been greater than on the financial question, 
which in one form or another has agitated the nation 
for many years and notably in the last two presi- 
dential elections. The sturdy fidelity to what the 
college regarded as sound principles, contributed in 
no small degree to the national verdict upon that 
question. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 5 

The attitude of Yale College as regards public 
affairs has generally been one of protest against im- 
pending mistakes and dangers, rather than one of 
effective advocacy of a positive policy of its own. 
The college has criticised, regulated, warned, rather 
than originated and led. It has never been intensely 
partisan, but its attitude has been a good deal like 
that of the late Kev. Dr. Leonard Bacon. Dr. Bacon 
was a free trader, but he always voted the Whig or 
Bepublican ticket. He said he had been wanting for 
years to get a chance to vote the Democratic ticket, 
and so emphasize his views on the tariff; but the 
Democrats always did some foolish thing or other 
just before election that compelled him to vote 
against them. Yale has been a good deal like that. 
Voting one ticket while wanting to vote the other, 
because its conservative critical attitude led it to 
emphasize party errors that the more enthusiastic 
partisan, in his confidence in the general excellence 
of party policy, would have overlooked. 

When the Kansas- Nebraska Bill was passed, Yale 
thundered against it in no doubtful manner; and 
Taylor, Silliman, Woolsey, Thacher, and others, fear- 
lessly voiced her sentiments. The college was no less 
outspoken for freedom and union when both were en- 
dangered by the Great Rebellion. More than five 
hundred fifty of Yale's graduates, and two hundred 
of her students who were not graduates, enlisted as 
soldiers in the war for the Union. 

The noble oration of Horace Bushnell at the 
Commemorative Celebration, July 26th, 1865, extols 
in fitting terms the patriotism of these soldiers and 
voices Yale's gratitude to them for their unselfish 
devotion to country and to freedom. 



G YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

I can not even now, after the lapse of nearly 
forty years, recall the names of the men who died 
npon the battlefield, without an overpowering emo- 
tion which nothing but the events connected with the 
great struggle for union and liberty has the power 
to excite. Theodore Winthrop, of the class of 1848, 
James C. Eice of 1854, Edward P. Blake of 1858, 
Diodate C. Hannahs of 1859, Edward Carrington of 
1859, Henry W. Camp of 1860, and my own class- 
mates of 1857, Butler, Dutton, Griswold, Porter, 
Roberts, and I might well add Drake and Croxton, 
■ — it will be another Yale than this, and another coun- 
try than ours when you and the hundred other schol- 
ars of Yale who died for the republic, and the six 
hundred who lived to see the end of the contest, are 
either forgotten or are not held in remembrance as 
the noblest of Yale's sons. 

I pass on now to consider Yale's relation to the 
educational development of the country. Heredity 
of blood is much less complex than heredity of mind. 
Genealogical tables are sufficiently intricate but they 
are simplicity itself in comparison with tables of 
the mind's ancestry showing the forces which have 
operated to produce and invigorate it. No oue can 
possibly estimate the results which come from the 
work of the successful teacher, in moulding the char- 
acter and quickening the intellect of his students, 
because the influence of this work goes on, in future 
years, in widening circles that at last reach the 
limits of the country and even of the world. With- 
out any doubt many of the men before me to-day owe 
something for what they are to the teaching and in- 
spiration of the first President Dwight, who put his 
own impress on Yale College, and in no small degree 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 7 

on other colleges, and sent out into the world as 
students men who have made his influence a con- 
tinuous power for more than a century. 

So too a modest, courteous, scholarly gentleman, 
a graduate of Yale College, teaches his classes for 
years in Williston Seminary, each year sending a 
score or more of well-prepared boys to the principal 
colleges of New England. His life and influence 
are not such as the historian will take notice of. 
He has fought no battles. He has led no great parties 
to victory. He has outlined no grand policy for the 
country. Perhaps he has not even written a book. 
But the influence of Josiah Clark, of the class of 
1833, did not cease when his life was ended here; 
and the Williston boys of his day will carry to their 
graves the memory of that manly and inspiring 
teacher; and if any of them have done good work in 
life, they will not hesitate to attribute it, in no small 
degree, to his teaching and the inspiration of his life. 

Two very eminent Yale men who have had much 
to do with progress in education in this country in 
a certain way, are Noah Webster, of the class of 1778, 
and Joseph E. Worcester, of the class of 1811, both 
lexicographers, to whose works most of the American 
people who are at all particular about their speech 
have been accustomed to refer as the final authority. 
The universal presence in schools in former times 
of Webster's spelling book and its disappearance in 
these later days will largely explain the increased 
illiteracy of college students in these days. There 
is nothing which the secondary schools need so much 
as a revival of Webster's spelling book, if we may 
believe published statements respecting the deficiency 
of students in the elements of English, a deficiency 



8 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

which is not always removed by extensive courses in 
English literature after students enter college. 

The great educational work done by Yale is of 
course the direct work of training its own students. 
With few exceptions the graduates of Yale have 
recognized the training they received as valuable and 
have been grateful to the college for it. That all 
chairs have not been filled with equal ability, that 
the same chair has not been filled always with uni- 
form ability, that some professors have been better 
teachers than scholars and some better scholars than 
teachers, and that the undergraduates have always 
known just how great the faculty was, individually 
and collectively, every graduate of the college is per- 
fectly aware. It can not be doubted that the work 
done here for two centuries has fitted men well for 
the struggle of life, and that most of the graduates of 
the college have been respectable and respected in 
the communities where they have lived and have 
been recognized as men of influence. But who can 
tell the story of their lives? In the Triennial Cata- 
logue of Yale the names of about 20,000 graduates 
are recorded. Of these about 900 have held positions 
in Yale or some other college ; about 3,000 have 
some special record for public office or work; and 
about 16,000 have no record beyond their academic 
degree. Who can tell how much the country or the 
world owes to these 20,000 men? The number is 
very small compared with the many millions of 
people who have lived in the two centuries just gone. 
And yet I do not doubt that in some way, direct or 
indirect, the influence of Yale has extended to a large 
part of these millions, affecting their education or 
their ideas or their principles or their lives. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 9 

It would be invidious to mention the names of 
distinguished scholars who have contributed to build 
up the educational work of Yale and make it the po- 
tent factor it has been in the education of the coun- 
try, because it would be impossible to name all. You 
of former generations and you of the present gen- 
eration will readily call to mind men who by their 
learning, vigor, and culture did much more for you 
than merely instruct. The list is a long and noble 
one of which no Yalensian can fail to be proud. 
Though great men have died, great men have been 
found to take their places; and the faculty to-day 
will not suffer in comparison with the faculties of 
other days. 

The roll of presidents is a famous one; but how- 
ever much we may admire the former presidents, of 
whom the men in this audience have had personal 
knowledge, Day, Woolsey, Porter, Dwight, or any of 
the earlier men, no one doubts that Arthur T. Had- 
ley, son and intellectual heir to the ever- to-be-re- 
membered James Hadley, is at least the peer of the 
best of them. 

Most of the Y"ale men who have engaged in the 
work of education have had on them, all their lives, 
the stamp of Yale College, and have cherished the 
Yale ideas and have followed the Yale methods. No 
other single word describes what these are so well 
as "conservatism." They have held fast to what was 
good and been slow to enter new and untried paths. 
The education that in the past had succeeded in giv- 
ing men power, has seemed to them good enough for 
the future ; and they have been slow to accept knowl- 
edge without discipline, or culture without power. 
As a result the manliness, force, and independence 



10 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

which particularly characterize the Yale student, 
have been reproduced throughout the country by the 
permeating influence of Yale training. "A boat race," 
said a newspaper correspondent last summer, "is 
never lost by Yale till the race is ended." He meant 
by that that every particle of strength would be ex- 
erted by a Yale crew to the last stroke, so that the 
race would finally be won if it were possible, as it 
generally is. It is that resolute determination to 
do one's best in a manly way everywhere in life, with- 
out affectation or snobbery or parasitical sycophancy 
or the undue worship of ancestors, that is the char- 
acteristic mark of Yale men, and that is sure to 
appear wherever Yale men teach. And where have 
they not taught? North, South, East, and West, 
Yale educators have been at work founding colleges 
and academies and schools, formulating the prin- 
ciples of public education and making the policy of 
new states more liberal even than that of the mother 
New England, stimulating public interest in new 
methods and building up graded systems of popular 
education with all the varied institutions needed for 
its protection. The earlier development of this work 
took the form of attempts to establish in new terri- 
tory colleges as like Yale as possible. Princeton, 
Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hamilton, may be taken 
as examples. "The first three presidents of Prince- 
ton were Yale men, and to the efforts of the first presi- 
dent, Jonathan Dickinson, Yale 1706, more than to 
the efforts of any other man, are due the founding 
and early development of Princeton University. The 
work of Aaron Burr, the second president, Yale 1735, 
confirmed the Yale tradition in Princeton, and the 
name of Jonathan Edwards, the third president, 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 11 

Yale 1720," according to Hallock, "contributed more 
to the fame of Princeton on the continent, short as 
was his presidency, than the name of any other 
official connected with its history." The first presi- 
dent of King's College, now Columbia, was Dr. Sam- 
uel Johnson, Yale 1714. He was the only Episcopa- 
lian clergyman in Connecticut, was highly esteemed 
by Benjamin Franklin, and was urged by him to be- 
come president of the institution founded by him in 
Philadelphia, afterward the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. When King's College was reorganized as Co- 
lumbia, William Samuel Johnson, Yale 1744, a dis- 
tinguished United States Senator from Connecticut 
and an eminent lawyer, became the first president. 
He was the first graduate of Yale to receive an 
honorary degree in law, having been made a Doctor 
of Civil Law by Oxford in 1776. Dartmouth College 
had for its founder and first president, Dr. Eleazar 
Wheelock, Yale 1733, for thirty-five years pastor of a 
church in Lebanon, Connecticut. The story of his 
work for the Indians and the development of his In- 
dian School into Dartmouth College, is too well 
known to need repetition here. The Yale stamp has al- 
ways been on Dartmouth, and the spirit of the two 
institutions has been, and is, not unlike. Hamilton 
College was established by charter of May 26, 1812. 
It was founded by a Yale graduate, Samuel Kirkland, 
Yale 1768, who drew his inspiration from Eleazar 
Wheelock, Yale 1733, president of Dartmouth. Like 
Dartmouth, Hamilton was the outgrowth of Chris- 
tian work for the Indians. For fifty years of its 
existence practically all the presidents and pro- 
fessors of Hamilton College were Yale graduates. 
The Ordinance of 1787, providing for the govern- 



12 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

ment of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, 
contained, among other remarkable articles, a re- 
quirement of public provision for education; its lan- 
y guage is : "Beligion, morality, and knowledge being 
necessary to good government and the happiness of 
mankind, schools and the means of education shall 
forever be encouraged." 

That ordinance has been most faithfully obeyed 
within the great region to which it applied, every 
state carved out of the territory having made noble 
provision for public education from the common 
school to the university. "Ohio University, estab- 
lished at Athens, Ohio, in 1802, bears the double dis- 
tinction of being the first college in the United States 
founded upon a land endowment from the national 
government, and also of being the oldest college in 
the Northwest Territory." Dr. Manasseh Cutler was 
the father of the university. He was a Yale man of 
the class of 1765, and a minister of the Gospel, pastor 
in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He drew up the plan for 
the college and made it as much like Yale as he could, 
but the legislature modified his plan and assumed 
large powers in the election of trustees, so that Ohio 
University, though a child of Yale, did not ultimately 
resemble Yale as much as it resembled a state univer- 
sity. But that was not because Dr. Manasseh Cutler 
had forgotten the character of his Alma Mater or 
had broken away from his Yale conservatism, but 
simply because other influences were too strong for 
him to control. Yale influence was thus the first to 
start higher education in the great Northwest Terri- 
tory, and the institution founded by Cutler still lives 
and prospers with as many students as Yale herself 
had when I was an undergraduate. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 13 

Twenty-four years later, in 1826, when northern 
Ohio had been well settled by good people from Con- 
necticut, Western Reserve College secured its charter. 
It was the first college established in the northern 
half of Ohio. The project to establish it originated 
with a Connecticut clergyman, Rev. Caleb Pitkin, 
a Yale graduate of the class of 1802. The institution 
was modeled after Yale, not only in respect to the. 
course of study, but also in respect to its governing 
board, a majority, as at Yale, being clergymen; and 
of this majority in the beginning four out of seven 
were Yale men. The first president who was a grad- 
uate of a college was Rev. George E. Pierce, D. D., a 
Yale graduate of the class of 1816. Of him it is said 
that "he was thoroughly imbued with the Connecti- 
cut idea of a college." That means the Yale idea. 
Most of the faculty of Western Reserve College were 
Yale men, and "for a number of years the institu- 
tion was modeled upon Yale College, in the minut- 
est particular." After this statement it is perhaps 
needless to add, in the language of the president 
of another Ohio college, that "from the first, West- 
ern Reserve has been one of the very best colleges 
in the country." Graduates of Western Reserve 
are now at the head of several of the most impor- 
tant departments of Yale; while several of the pres- 
idents and many of the professors of Western Re- 
serve have been Yale men. Henry L. Hitchcock, 
of the class of 1832, Carroll Cutler, of the class of 
1854, both presidents, and Henry N. Day, of the 
class of 1828, Elias Loomis, of the class of 1830, 
Nathan P. Seymour, of the class of 1834, and Lem- 
uel S. Potwin, of the class of 1854, may be men- 
tioned, not as a complete list, but as a sample of 



14 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

the Yale men who have made Western Keserve — 
now expanded into a university — the excellent col- 
lege it has always been. 

Illinois College was established in 1829 at Jack- 
sonville, in the limits of what is now the imperial 
state of Illinois. All the influences leading to the 
establishment of this college originated at Yale or 
with Yale men. The promoters of the enterprise 
"followed the advice of the president and profes- 
sors of Yale College, and these venerable advisers 
warned against subjecting the institution to polit- 
ical or denominational control." Eev. Dr. Edward 
Beecher, Yale 1831, was the first president. Eev. 
Dr. Julian M. Sturtevant, Yale 1826, was his suc- 
cessor, and his presidency was long and prosper- 
ous. The college was founded when Illinois had no 
colleges and had a population of only 160,000. Yale 
put her impress on the young state and has kept it 
there to a greater or less degree ever since. 

Beloit College was founded in southern Wiscon- 
sin in 1848. All of its first faculty of two were Yale 
men. Its first president was Rev. Dr. Aaron L. Cha- 
pin, Yale 1837, who held the office for thirty-six 
years, till 1886. To-day as ever, Yale is represented 
in the faculty of Beloit. The ideas of the founders 
of Beloit were the same old conservative Yale ideas 
which have so generally characterized Yale educators 
whether at home or abroad. As the Beloit men 
themselves expressed it, "Education was understood 
to mean chiefly a self-development of the individual 
under training, to a true self-possession and com- 
mand of his best faculties." To-day Beloit and Yale 
are alike presided over by one of their own bril- 
liant graduates; what Arthur T. Hadley is to Yale, 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 15 

Edward D. Eaton is to Beloit ; and, if I were seeking, 
in the whole West for a young Yale, I should go at 
once to Beloit; and I have no hesitation in saying 
that there is no denominational or independent non- 
sectarian college in the West that is better than 
Beloit. President Eaton is a graduate of one of the 
departments of Yale. 

I have chosen to speak of these colleges, not be- 
cause Yale men were to be found in their faculties, — 
there are many colleges all over the country that can 
not be named to-day of which the same is true, — but 
because these institutions seem to have been created 
as well as developed by Yale influence, and in their 
career they have largely affected the character of 
the great Northwest, all of them having been estab- 
lished most opportunely by Yale influence within 
the territory dedicated to freedom and education 
and religion by the Ordinance of 1787. 

Passing from the consideration of institutions in- 
tended to reproduce Yale, I come next to consider 
the work of a few men who have been notable as 
educators. Foremost among (these, worthy to be 
classed with Horace Mann in consideration of the 
originality of his plans and the extended scope of 
his work, was Henry Barnard, of the class of 1830, 
who closed his long career of usefulness in this first 
year of the twentieth century — a man whose influ- 
ence upon the schools and the secondary education 
of the country was so pronounced that the largest 
educational convention of the year, with its ten thou- 
sand teachers from all parts of the country, fitly 
paused in its deliberations to celebrate at one entire 
session the remarkable achievements of this distin- 
guished educator. He was a man of original ideas. 



16 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

He believed in progress. He never rested satisfied 
with what most of the world was ready to accept as 
the ultimate attainment. For him there was always 
something better further on; and the great army of 
educators, good and bad alike, were compelled at 
last to follow his leading. And he is not the only 
one who has gone out from Yale and has done a 
broader educational work than that outlined by her 
traditional policy. Indeed it may be confidently 
asserted that the work done by Yale graduates as 
educators outside of New Haven, in recent years, 
has shown a much less close conformity to the con- 
servative ideas of Yale than that done in the first 
half of the century. Too much honor can not be 
given to Daniel C. Gilman, of the class of 1852, first 
president of Johns Hopkins. He went out from 
Yale to assume the presidency of the University of 
California, and, after some years of vigorous work 
in which he succeeded in giving form, purpose, and 
life to that university, he was called to take up a 
new work in Baltimore. Discarding the traditions 
of the old colleges of the country, he set himself to 
the task, not of building up another rival college 
for undergraduates, but of establishing a genuine 
university in which the graduates of the best col- 
leges of the land could advance in knowledge beyond 
the limits of all the colleges, under men distinguished 
for their original investigations and for their great 
attainments in the subjects which they undertook to 
teach. How great his success was you all know. 
How much the old colleges are indebted to him for 
a new impulse and for his grand leadership in cre- 
ating a real university, the faculties of those colleges 
very well know; and how great a service he ren- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 17 

dered to the country can be witnessed by hosts of 
bright graduates of Johns Hopkins filling most im- 
portant positions in most of the leading colleges of 
the country, and bringing to their work a new in- 
spiration derived from great teachers and new meth- 
ods of scientific investigation. And among the great 
men whom Gilman gathered around him with a judg- 
ment that was almost faultless, we are proud to 
name one of yesterday's orators, Dr. William H. 
Welch, the most distinguished pathologist and bac- 
teriologist of our country. The direct influence upon 
the colleges of our country exerted by Johns Hopkins, 
planned and administered by Dr. Gilman, can hard- 
ly be overestimated. The methods of study and the 
learning of that university are being reproduced from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific in every institution that 
has money enough to secure graduates of Johns Hop- 
kins for its faculty. A number of American col- 
leges have thrown aside the bands which compressed 
them and have expanded into genuine universities. 
But it was Daniel C. Gilman who led the way, and 
every man who cares for progress in educational work 
and for the highest learning will acknowledge that 
the United States owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. 
Gilman for the work which he has done outside of 
Yale. President Gilman has been doctored by more 
universities and colleges than any other graduate 
of Yale — indeed any college that has not conferred 
the doctorate on Gilman is ipso facto not really re- 
spectable — but he is still in excellent health and is 
even now ready to take up and to carry forward 
successfully another very important educational 
work as director of the Washington Memorial Asso- 
ciation at the Capital. 



18 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

I recall another name worthy to be mentioned 
here with especial honor, the name of a man not lack- 
ing in brilliancy, but whose career has been wrought 
out by such patient and faithful work, that no man 
ought to feel anything but joy at the success which 
he has attained. I refer to Hon. William T. Harris, 
of the class of 1858, the accomplished United States 
Commissioner of Education. The highest education- 
al work of the country is undoubtedly done in the 
colleges; but the greatest work is done in the pub- 
lic schools. It is in these schools that the great body 
of citizens of the republic are being trained, and the 
future of the country, so far as respects its peace 
and order and industrial prosperity, is dependent 
on this work far more than on the work of the col- 
leges, except so far as the work of the colleges tells 
on the work of the schools. The teachers in these 
schools are numbered by the hundreds of thousands. 
And a man who can teach the teachers, giving them 
alike new conceptions of their work and new meth- 
ods of doing their work, so that all along the line 
from one end of the country to the other there shall 
be a pedagogical revival with deepened interest in 
study on the part of the millions of scholars, is an 
educational general, and fit to be commander-in-chief. 
And William T. Harris is the man. He is a philoso- 
pher. He founded and has edited the Journal of 
Speculative Philosophy, the first journal of the kind 
in the English language, if the language of philoso- 
phy can properly be called English; and yet he did 
not lose his common sense, his clear way of stating 
things, his power of suggesting new thoughts and 
plans to teachers and thus getting them out of the 
ruts, nor his ability to awaken enthusiasm in teach- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 19 

ers for their work. Above the roar of the mighty 
flood of so-called pedagogical learning with which 
our country is being inundated, the clear good sense 
and philosophical suggestions of Mr. Harris never 
fail to reach the understanding of teachers and to 
prove most helpful to them. His views on education 
are always sound, and the great multitude who listen 
to his words and in turn repeat them in substance to 
a still greater multitude, make his influence on the 
education of the people beyond calculation. Let 
him be honored as he deserves for what he has done 
and what he is doing. The government at Wash- 
ington honored itself when it made William T. Har- 
ris Commissioner of Education, and, whatever the 
party in power, he should be retained in his present 
office as long as he is able to serve the cause of edu- 
cation as well as he has done in the past. 

Of Andrew D. White, of the class of 1853, it is 
difficult to say whether he is more distinguished as 
a writer and thinker forty years in advance of his 
age, or as a diplomatist eminent for his services as 
the representative of his country at the courts of 
Russia and Germany, or as an educator blending 
the purposes of a land grant college with the broad 
educational ideas of Ezra Cornell and establishing 
and directing successfully for years that unique in- 
stitution, Cornell University. Certainly his success 
in any one of these directions has been sufficient to 
satisfy the ambition of most men. As president of 
Cornell he did much to promote new theories of edu- 
cation and to enlarge the scope of educational in- 
stitutions. The institution which he created had 
little resemblance to Yale, but it is not unlike the lead- 
in'jx state universities of the West. The conditions 



20 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

of the endowments were doubtless in a large degree 
responsible for this; though no one supposes that 
Dr. White, even if given a free hand, would have 
attempted to reproduce a Yale at Ithaca. Some- 
thing new and as far as possible original must be 
the outcome of his labors, and such in the judg- 
ment of the Yale faculty at the time was the out- 
come. As the years go on institutions like men learn 
from experience and soon drop off their unpleasant 
features and assume new ones that are desirable. 
This has been the history of Cornell, and, without 
losing in any degree her individuality, she has at 
last fallen practically into line with all the success- 
ful universities of the country. Dr. White gave to 
her service some of the best years of his life and not 
an inconsiderable part of his fortune. 

Chicago University, which, though a mere child in 
age, has the size, strength, ambitions, and activity 
of the full grown man, owes its existence and re- 
sources in the last analysis to the thought and sug- 
gestion of a Yale graduate; and owes its develop- 
ment, verve, and originality to its first president, Dr. 
William R. Harper, who graduated at Yale as doctor 
of philosophy in 1875, and who, as a professor 
at Yale, had the opportunity to fill himself with the 
Yale spirit if he did not secure it as an undergrad- 
uate at Muskingum College. Perhaps he did, for the 
first preceptor of that institution was David Put- 
nam, grandson of General Israel Putnam and a grad- 
uate of Yale in the class of 1793. Time will not per- 
mit an extended notice of Dr. Harper's great work 
in Chicago ; and it is not necessary ; for in these days 
the University of Chicago is very much in evidence; 
and the world knows how much the amiable, ver- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 21 

satile, and progressive first president, Dr. William 
R. Harper, has done for education. I do not claim 
it all as a part of the glory of Yale, but I do claim 
an undivided and indivisible share. 

I should be glad to pay a just tribute to the work 
done in Atlanta by Horace Bumstead, of the class of 
1861 ; in Tulane University, at New Orleans, by Wil- 
liam Preston Johnston, of the class of 1852; in New 
York, by Charlton T. Lewis, of the class of 1853; 
in Rochester, by Augustus H. Strong, of the class of 
1857 ; in Cornell, by Moses Coit Tyler, of the class of 
1857; in Lincoln and Iowa City, by George E. Mac- 
Lean, of the theological class of 1874, and by many 
others whose work is eminently worthy of special men- 
tion. But I can not further deal with individuals, 
but must briefly state the essential facts. 

Yale furnished the first president of at least 
eighteen colleges, and the list is remarkable as much 
for the distinguished character of the institutions 
as for their number. I name them: Princeton, Co- 
lumbia, Dartmouth, University of Georgia, Williams, 
Hamilton, Kenyon, Illinois, Wabash, University of 
Missouri, University of Mississippi, University of 
Wisconsin, Beloit, Chicago, California, Cornell, Johns 
Hopkins, and Western Reserve. One hundred five 
graduates of Yale have been president of a college, 
and at least eighty-five different colleges have at some 
time had a Yale graduate for president. Among these 
are the state universities of Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
Iowa, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mis- 
sissippi, Wyoming, Indiana, Georgia, Missouri, Ver- 
mont, California, and Oregon, and probably others. 
Among the other colleges, not state institutions, are 
Dickinson, Middlebury, Hampden-Sidney, Amherst, 



22 YALE'S RELATION TO THE 

Rutgers, Trinity, Lafayette, Transylvania, Tulane, 
Lake Forest, Pomona, and Whitman, and the Impe- 
rial University of Japan. More than six hundred grad- 
uates of Yale have been professors in some college. 
I wish I could name them, including the distinguished 
men who have done their work here at Yale, but 
the mere reading of the names of professors, the chairs 
they filled and the colleges they served, would re- 
quire the entire time permitted for this address. No 
one can doubt that the influence of these men in so 
many institutions in all parts of our country has 
contributed much to the advancement of higher learn- 
ing in all sections, to the elevation of the people, and 
to the prosperity and true grandeur of our republic. 

The prairies that for hundreds of miles stretch 
in almost unbroken continuity through the West do 
not excite in the traveler to the Pacific any special 
emotion of wonder. Such emotion is excited by the 
tall peaks further west that tower heavenward, the 
sentinels of the Rockies, grand, gloomy, solitary, 
sublime. But the prairies, monotonously level and 
tame though they are, can feed the world. 

The largest part of the alumni of the college are 
like the prairie, inconspicuous but useful. Some of 
the others are like the foothills, elevated but small, 
in comparison with Shasta's heaven-piercing head. 
Comparatively few rise to mountain heights, and 
hardly one attains the grandeur of the solitary peak 
to whose majesty the world does homage. But the 
inconspicuous lives are not always the least useful 
lives. The men with the longest record in the tri- 
ennial catalogue are not necessarily the men who 
have done the most good. Many a graduate as prin- 
cipal of an academy, a high school, or a preparatory 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 23 

school of some kind, has done a work that in its 
breadth, power, and beneficence is not equaled by the 
work of more conspicuous men in higher fields. I 
would rather have the glory which rests upon the 
memory of Dr. Arnold, of Eugby, than the halo which 
encircles the proudest don of Oxford. It is a great 
thing to be a real thinker. It is a great thing to 
have a noble character. But it is a greater thing to 
plant your thoughts in intellects where they will 
grow, and to put your principles which have made 
character, into hearts where they will be cherished. 
In this thought the teachers of all grades can rest 
content. And Mother Yale, as she calls the roll of 
her sons who are worthy of her love, will not omit 
a single one however humble, if only he has done 
what he could. 



—3 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 * 

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens : 

This day is sacred to patriotism. It is a day 
rich in precious memories. The all-controlling feel- 
ing of every American heart at this honr ought to 
be profound gratitude to Almighty God for his care 
over us as a nation; for in the history of no people, 
save the Hebrews, has His guiding hand been more 
apparent than in the course of history from the 
discovery of America down to this centennial anni- 
versary of our national independence. When more 
than eighteen hundred years ago Paul stood on Mars 
Hill, surrounded by almost innumerable evidences 
of universal idolatry, and spoke to the Athenians of 
that living and true God, who made the world and 
all things therein, he taught them this great reli- 
gious and political truth: that "for all nations of 
men on the face of the earth, God hath determined 
the times before appointed, and the bounds of their 
habitation." The discovery and colonization of our 
country and its subsequent political history, all bear 
testimony to the truth of this declaration of the in- 
spired apostle. 

The discovery of America was apparently an ac- 
cident. It was really the fulfillment of God's design 
in his own appointed time. From the discovery of 
America to the planting of the first permanent col- 

*Delivered in Danbury, Connecticut, July 4th, 1876. 



26 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

ony on the continent was nearly three-quarters of 
a century. In 1564 a colony was established at Port 
Royal by French Huguenots. Spain claimed the 
country in which they were settled, and Spanish 
hatred of the French was intensified by religious 
bigotry. That was not the age of toleration. To- 
day, beneath the protecting flag of our country, my 
Catholic neighbor and myself dwell together in peace, 
exchanging kindly offices of neighborly good will, 
not seeking points of difference, but glad to find 
occasion for sympathy and agreement. But then the 
knife and the fagot were the arguments by which 
orthodoxy either in church or state punished het- 
erodoxy. The Huguenot colony was obliterated in 
a deluge of blood and out of its ruins rose Spanish 
St. Augustine, forty years before any other town 
was permanently founded on the continent. 

It was more than a century from the discovery 
of the country before an English colony was sus- 
cessfully planted. Gilbert and Ealeigh had tried 
and failed. The sovereigns of England would do 
nothing. Private enterprise was inadequate. As I 
do not doubt that Almighty wisdom designedly kept 
this continent concealed for so many centuries, so 
I do not doubt that the same wisdom ordained the 
delay in colonizing our shores after they were dis- 
covered. To human vision it appears as if a settle- 
ment at any earlier day would have changed entirely 
and fatally the character and destiny of our coun- 
try. Who can doubt that the same Providence which 
turned Columbus, by a flight of birds, from the shores 
of the continent to the islands of the West Indies, 
and thus gave to Spain only the dominion of those 
islands, reserving the continent for England, ap- 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 27 

pointed also the time when the colonization of our 
country should successfully begin. The continent 
was not discovered until the Old World had emerged 
from the ignorance of the Dark Ages and had fought 
its way back to the civilization and learning of the 
brightest periods of the past. It was discovered 
just as those silent influences were beginning to op- 
erate in the heart of Europe, by which the religious 
and intellectual character and opinions of the world 
were destined to be revolutionized. While the sages 
of Greece and Kome, Socrates and Plato and Aris- 
totle, Cicero and Seneca, and the Divine Author of 
our religion and his apostles were once more speak- 
ing to the world, the printing press had come to carry 
their words to all the earth. It was a fit time for 
the new world to be opened, upon which this flood 
of learning, human and divine, should be poured. 
But if the settlement of our country had at once 
begun, whether through the agency of Spain, or Por- 
tugal, or France, or England, the foundations of no 
such grand republic as that which now covers this 
continent could have been laid. For in no one of 
these countries were liberty and law, education and 
toleration, so understood and cherished as they must 
be by the people who should successfully found the 
great republic which to-day protects the humblest 
and the highest alike, whether foreign born or na- 
tive, and secures to all its citizens absolute equality 
before the law, and unlimited freedom of conscience 
and opinion. And so England, not knowing what 
she did, waited. Five sovereigns of the Tudor dy- 
nasty, from Henry VII to the great Elizabeth, one 
after another, passed away. England had become in 
the highest sense one of the great powers of the world. 



28 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

Her commerce, her industry, her literature had re- 
ceived an almost divine inspiration. Spencer and 
Hooker and Bacon and Shakespeare had written. 
And then, in the reign of James I, while the religious 
and intellectual influence of the Elizabethan Era 
were still giving to England a glory which no lapse 
of time has been able to diminish, our first colony 
was planted at Jamestown, just before the birth of 
Milton. America is the child of England, born in 
the hour of England's highest historical and literary 
fame. 

At her birth, men had already learned the val- 
ue of liberty and were ready to fight and to die for 
it. Already that bloody contest was preparing in 
England in which Charles I lost his head and the 
race of Stuarts the crown. It is the one character- 
istic common to all the settlers of our country that 
they placed the highest value upon human rights, 
upon religious and political liberty. Had they come 
at any time before the Elizabethan Era, they could 
not have brought with them these grand ideas to 
which we are indebted to-day for the possession of 
a country which, with all its faults, is the glory of 
the world. 

Yet in the first government established in Vir- 
ginia there was not a single element of popular lib- 
erty. The political power was in the hands of the 
king and council. Religion was established by law. 
Indifference to it was punished by stripes; infidelity, 
by death. It was twelve years before Virginians 
enjoyed the rights of Englishmen. Then a General 
Assembly was constituted. It met on the 30th day 
of July, 1619, and was the first elective body ever 
assembled on this continent. The system of repre- 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 29 

sentation was thus established and thereafter true 
principles of government prevailed in Virginia. 

But now, only one year after Virginia had thus 
secured for herself a freedom more complete than 
had yet been attained in England, she suddenly be- 
comes the home of the worst species of bondage and 
receives into her bosom an institution destined to 
be the cause of "all our woe." In August a Dutch 
man-of-war landed twenty negroes and they were 
sold as slaves. The greatest evil and the greatest 
good have alike but small beginnings. Three months 
later the Mayflower, bearing one hundred two Pil- 
grims, came in sight of the shores of Massachusetts. 
Is there a God in history? Has the Mayflower any 
mission to fulfill in relation to that Dutch slave 
ship? Has that solemn compact of government signed 
in the cabin of the Mayflower, and which Bancroft 
pronounces "the birth of constitutional liberty," any 
influence to exert upon the political future of our 
country with reference to slavery? Have "that dem- 
ocratic liberty and independent Christian worship" 
which "at once existed in America as the Pilgrims 
landed" any connection with the future national 
sentiment respecting slavery? I see in the coming 
years the chains carried from Virginia to Texas, new 
links constantly forged and new victims manacled, 
till at last they are numbered by millions. But I see 
the institutions and principles of the Pilgrims tak- 
ing possession of New England, of the great Middle 
States, of the mighty Northwest, on to the shores 
of the Pacific; carried everywhere by the sturdy set- 
tlers who fell the forests and plant civilization ; pro- 
claimed and advocated from ten thousand pulpits 
not of their faith only but of every Christian faith. 



30 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

As I watch these two forces moving along resist- 
lessly in parallel lines across the continent, I see 
that one of these is the agent in God's hands for the 
destruction of the other. And when the irrepress- 
ible conflict shall come, as come it will, as come it 
must, in that supreme moment of mortal agony when 
a great nation shall plunge into a sea of blood for 
its own purification from a great crime, may God 
be with the brave defenders of liberty and union ! 

What has given these men of Plymouth their in- 
fluence? Not the greatness of their colony, for it 
never became great. It was their possession of a 
grand idea and their fidelity to it. This idea was 
not created by them. "For the spirit of Puritanism,' 1 
as the historian Palfrey remarks, "was no creation 
of the sixteenth century. It is as old as the truth 
and manliness of England." Nor does he in this 
assert anything surprising. History is not a record 
of the accidental workings of blind causes. Revo- 
lutions are never unaccountable. The great men, 
who, in the various centuries, have been the leaders 
of thought, who have lifted the people up to their 
platform, and swept them onward to action and to 
victory, have not been the creations of the hour. 
The learning, the experience, and the thought of pre- 
vious ages have contributed to make them. Luther 
was not the creation of the sixteenth century. Forces 
long working culminated in power in his day, and, 
if he had never lived, there would have come an- 
other Luther to break the silence which to so many 
thousands had become unendurable. Lincoln was not 
the creation of the nineteenth century. His Proc- 
lamation of Emancipation, by which the shackles 
were struck from the limbs of four millions of slaves, 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 31 

was the voice of American humanity which had been 
gathering volume for two centuries ; and at last amid 
the horrors of civil war and the impending ruin of 
the noble structure of constitutional freedom erected 
by our fathers, sounded forth to the world and to 
the ages the sublime flat of universal emancipation. 
So with the men of New England. They were the 
exponents of an idea older than themselves. It was 
this, a living principle of individual faith and action, 
which soon transformed New England, bleak and 
dreary as she appeared to the Pilgrims on that 
memorable December morning, and made the wil- 
derness blossom as the rose. It was this which felled ^ 
the forests, created villages, established churches, 
erected school-houses, and organized the whole sys- 
tem of Anglo-Saxon independent local self-govern- 
ment, with its executive and legislature, its churches 
and church-meeting, its ecclesiastical societies and 
society-meetings, its towns and town-meetings, its 
schools and school-meetings. No matter what a man's 
interests were, it put into his own hands the man- 
agement of those interests and infused into him a 
spirit of self-reliance and all-conquering activity. 
Do you wonder now that, although only 21,000 Eng- 
lishmen found a home in New England in the first 
period of immigration, yet in less than ten years, 
before this immigration had ceased, six republics 
had sprung up in New England and the foundations 
of the seventh were laid. Admire the wisdom and 
ability with which the governments of these little 
republics were administered. Where can you find 
truer statesmanship than that of the older Winthrop, 
justly entitled to be called the father of New Eng- 
land, or that of the younger Winthrop, to whom Con- 



32 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

necticut owes an especial debt of gratitude? From 
the first the people proved their capacity for self- 
government. Connecticut, for example, for twenty 
years had no charter; yet its government, devised 
by the colonists themselves, was essentially the same 
as that under which we live to-day, thus demonstrat- 
ing that the men who can govern themselves as in- 
dividuals are the best fitted to govern themselves in 
the state. 

During the century and a quarter between the 
founding of Virginia and that of Georgia, the young- 
est of the thirteen colonies, there was very little con- 
cert of action among the colonies. The only excep- 
tion was the "League of the United Colonies of 
New England." But even this was most carefully 
guarded, each colony being sensitively jealous of its. 
own rights, and fearful of any control on the part 
of another. What hope then could there be of union 
in any emergency, among the rest? Indeed, to a 
careless observer, the union of our forefathers in 
the Eevolution, the fidelity with which Virginia and 
South Carolina stood by Massachusetts and Connec- 
ticut must appear most wonderful. The colonies 
were homogeneous in hardly any respect. They had 
not less than three different forms of government. 
Government itself is an educator, and such diversity 
could not be without effect. What should induce the 
Cavalier and Churchman of Virginia to join hands 
with the Roundhead and Puritan of New England? 
What bond could unite both of these with the Cath- 
olic of Maryland, the Quaker of Pennsylvania, the 
Baptist of Rhode Island, and the promiscuous ele- 
ments of the other colonies, in a contest against 
England, the common parent of them all? 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 33 

I answer: In all the colonies the direct agents 
of colonization were the common people, the bone 
and sinew of a country, the class that has always 
been most tenacious of liberty. In all the colonies 
the political institutions were, with trifling excep- 
tions, formed at the earliest possible moment upon 
a common model. Eepresentative government at last 
prevailed everywhere; in some colonies without dif- 
ficulty, in others after a struggle. The rights of 
representation, once secured, could never again be 
surrendered by a people who knew the value of lib- 
erty. Had the bond of union among the Americans 
been anything weaker than a common love for a 
sacred right, British bayonets would have destroyed 
it. But before ideas, bayonets are powerless. And 
so when the hour of the American ^Revolution had 
come, as our great historian has said, "The people 
of the continent with irresistible energy obeyed one 
general impulse, as the earth in spring listens to the 
command of nature, and, without the appearance 
of effort, bursts forth to life in perfect harmony. 
The change which divine wisdom ordained and which 
no human force or policy could hold back, proceed- 
ed as uniformly and majestically as the laws of be- 
ing, and was as certain as the decree of eternity." 
In the clash of two opposing wills, the American 
demanding liberty, the Briton denying it, was struck 
out the spark which kindled a continent into the 
flames of revolution. The obstinacy of English shop- 
keepers and of both Houses of Parliament, and es- 
pecially of the king, had been effectual in produc- 
ing union among the colonies. A Continental Con- 
gress, as the exponent of the united voice of the col- 
onies, met in 1774; all opposition to armed resist- 



fc^ 



34 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

ance of England ceased in 1775 with the news of 
Lexington and Bunker Hill, just as in 1861, the 
voice of compromise between freedom and slavery 
was silenced forever by the guns of Fort Sumter; 
and in 1776 the whole country was ready for inde- 
pendence. Congress did not lead. It simply obeyed 
the voice of the people. Virginia first proclaimed 
her desire for independence. Connecticut, Delaware, 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New Jersey fol- 
lowed. General Washington freely expressed his 
opinion that nothing but independence could save us. 
On the 7th of June, 1776, Eichard Henry Lee, of 
Virginia, offered a resolution in Congress, 'Hhat 
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, 
free and independent states." The proposition was 
seconded by John Adams, of Massachusetts. The 
resolution was debated all day, the 8th of June; it 
again came up on the 10th, and was then postponed 
for three weeks. On the 1st of July, the proposition 
for independence was again brought up. The mover, 
Richard Henry Lee, was not present. John Adams 
opened the debate, and the discussion lasted through 
the day. On the 2d of July the resolution for in- 
dependence was adopted. Two days later, on the 
4th of July, 1776, Congress adopted the famous "Dec- 
laration of Independence," containing their reasons 
for separating from the mother country and the prin- 
ciples by which in future they were to be guided. 
"The bill of rights which it promulgates is of rights 
that are older than human institutions, and spring 
from the eternal justice that is anterior to the state." 
It is one hundred years to-day since that noble Dec- 
laration was adopted. For a century it has been the 
inspiration of the American patriot and a light to 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 35 

the world. Its glory is not dimmed. The fame 
of the men who adopted it has grown brighter year 
by year. The republic which they founded still 
lives, faithful to the principles of that Declaration, 
and vastly augmented in territory, wealth, and pow- 
er. One hundred years! They are more than all 
to the individual. How little they are to a great 
nation. They carry generation after generation of 
men to their graves. But man lives and the nation 
lives in him and for him. To it the century is but 
the first few months of infancy, the bare beginning 
of life and growth. Let "Fancy fold her wings." 
She can not paint the greatness of the mature re- 
public that is to be. 

I have thus spoken of the forces which created 
in this western wilderness thirteen independent and 
liberty-loving republics. I come now to speak of the 
force which bound these republics together as one 
nation, e pluribus unwm, and of the results of our 
political system and civilization as they appear at the 
close of the first century of our national life. 

The American school-boy is familiar with the 
history of our struggle for independence. In those 
years the tide of war swept over every state and 
desolated or alarmed almost every neighborhood. 
Connecticut bore more than her full share of suffer- 
ing. New London, New Haven, Fairfield, Norwalk, 
Danbury, all were visited and more or less ravaged. 
The story of Tryon's expedition to Danbury, and 
the desolation he wrought in this county — a story 
most eloquently told here twenty-two years ago by 
one of Connecticut's most brilliant orators, when 
you honored yourselves by raising a monument to the 
brave General Wooster, I need not now repeat. Great 



36 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

-as was the misery occasioned by the ravages of the 
merciless Tory, the spirit of '76 was proof against 
both the sword and the torch; and here in Danbury, 
the patriot, amid the ashes of his home, renewed 
his oath of fidelity to liberty. 

So long as the war lasted a common peril tended 
to bind the colonies together. All felt the need of 
union against a common foe, and very soon the ne- 
cessity of some agreement between the colonies by 
which the powers of Congress as the representative 
of their united sovereignty should be more clearly 
defined. In November, 1777, "the Articles of Con- 
federation and Perpetual Union" were adopted, and 
the "United States of America" came into existence, 
at least the embryo of a nation. This confederation, 
the best system of union that could then be extorted 
from the disturbing jealousy of the colonies, lasted 
for more than ten years. Its chief defect was its 
weakness. Congress had large rights but little pow- 
er. It could declare war, but could not raise men 
or money to carry it on. It could contract debts, 
but had no means of paying them. It could not lay 
taxes nor collect revenue. That power was reserved 
to the states. Such a mere shadow of a national 
government could not long meet the wants of an 
enterprising and commercial people. The necessity 
for a more perfect union at last became so evident 
that a convention was called in 1787 to revise the 
Articles of Confederation. This convention ultimate- 
ly adopted a Constitution, which, having been rati- 
fied by the states, went into operation in the begin- 
ning of 1789, and the United States became in fact 
as in name, one nation. The adoption of the Con- 
stitution was most earnestly opposed by a large 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 37 

class very zealous for liberty and dreading any en- 
croachment on the rights of the people. It was as 
earnestly supported by others no less true to lib- 
erty and popular rights, but wise enough to see that 
to a great country like ours a pure democracy and 
a pure monarchy were alike unsuited; and that a 
constitutional republic was the only form of gov- 
ernment which could insure to the citizen at once 
the freedom of a democracy and the security and 
strength of a vigorous administration. The modern 
reader of those matchless papers that make up the 
Federalist, the production of Hamilton, Jay, and 
Madison, will get a clear idea of the strength of 
argument and of the political shrewdness required 
to induce the states to adopt the Constitution. And 
yet so admirable were the workings of this Consti- 
tution that in a very short time after it went into 
operation no one was willing to be known as its 
opponent. For the first twelve years of our life un- 
der the Constitution the party that favored it held 
power, and the young nation had that time in which 
to give its new system a fair trial. It is a matter 
for congratulation that it was so. The administra- 
tions of George Washington and John Adams gave 
the young nation a grand start in the right direc- 
tion, guided as they were by a wise conservatism as 
far removed from any attachment for the monar- 
chical systems of Europe on the one hand as for the 
unbridled ferocity and license of French republican- 
ism on the other. Then the power passed to the op- 
position party, and the name Federalist, by reason 
of subsequent events, gradually became odious. The 
new party, called Eepublicans by themselves and 
stigmatized as Democrats by their opponents, a name 



38 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

which, like many another term of reproach, was ul- 
timately adopted and cherished as a term of honor, 
came into power with Thomas Jefferson as president. 
In theory it was opposed to a strong national gov- 
ernment, and was favorable to the largest rights of 
the people and of the states. Its practice, however, 
when in power, was more conservative than its the- 
ories before power was gained. It encountered in 
its career a great variety of enemies organized under 
numerous party names, from the remnant of the old 
Federalists in 1800 to the very respectable but un- 
fortunate Whigs whose banner went down in the 
dust in hopeless defeat in 1852. For sixty years, 
with just enough of interruption to prevent its feel- 
ing wholly irresponsible, it held control of the coun- 
try. During most of that time its policy was bold 
and aggressive, commanding the confidence of a ma- 
jority of the people by the courage with which it ad- 
hered to its convictions. For the country's good it 
stretched the Constitution and bought the great 
Louisiana Territory. It sympathized with France 
and detested England. It carried us through a war 
with England in the name of "Free Trade and Sail- 
or's Eights." It held almost undisputed possession 
of the country under Monroe. It rose to a new vigor 
of party-life and to a courage bordering on rashness 
under Andrew Jackson. With him it met and 
crushed South Carolina Nullification in '32. With 
him it crushed the United States Bank by removing 
the deposits, and it encountered as a sequence the 
terrible financial crisis of 1837. It met a terrible 
defeat under Van Buren in 1840, but almost imme- 
diately recovered its strength, appropriated to itself 
President Tyler, the successor of Harrison, and in 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 39 

'44 under Polk defeated the Whigs under gallant Hen- 
ry Clay. It annexed Texas, carried the country 
through the Mexican war, added an immense area 
of territory to our country, a territory demonstrated 
by Whig statesmen at the time to be worthless, but 
which has proved to be immensely rich in mineral 
wealth, not ill-adapted to agriculture, and of such 
value in all respects that without it the glory of our 
country to-day would be much less than it is. The 
party suffered defeat in 1848, but rallied with all 
its old vigor and won two successive victories in 
'52 and '56, obliterating the Whig party and meet- 
ing in the last contest only foes divided and hopeless. 

And now a question rose into prominence before 
which all other political questions paled into insig- 
nificance. The question of slavery, the germs of 
which were in the Constitution itself, although the 
framers of that instrument little suspected the trou- 
ble it would cause — a question which from time to 
time, in one form or another, had agitated our coun- 
try through the whole period of our national life — 
a question the more dangerous because, unlike other 
questions, instead of dividing the people, it divided 
sections of country — a question which once at least 
had been prevented from destroying the Union only 
by the skillfully devised Missouri Compromise of 
Henry Clay, this same question, which had waited 
ninety years for settlement and could never be set- 
tled until it was settled right, was, by the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, brought before the Ameri- 
can people as the one question of political discussion. 

A new party called Republican was organized 
in 1856 on the platform of freedom in the territories. 
The country was agitated as never before. Forces 

—4 



40 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

before unheard of entered into the political contest. 
The Republicans won their first great victory in 1860 
under Lincoln. The election was followed by the rap- 
id secession of Southern states, by the mustering of 
troops, by the gathering of armies, by the clash of 
arms and the roar of cannon, by bloodshed and sor- 
row and tears, by all the horrors of a great and pro- 
longed civil war, Unionists and Rebels alike fight- 
ing with a valor worthy of the American name. But 
when the smoke of battle cleared away it was the 
American flag which was seen to be still waving, 
it was the Union which still lived, it was secession 
and slavery that were dead. The ignominious curse 
of human bondage was obliterated from one end of 
the land to the other. Since then the nation has been 
endeavoring to repair the ravages of the war. The 
Republicans have maintained their control of the 
Government. Whether they shall continue' to do so, 
or the party that so long held power prior to 1860 
shall again be trusted with the control, the contest 
this fall will determine. 

And now looking back, how plainly appears the 
wisdom of the fathers in the system of government 
which they devised. Our institutions have shown 
themselves equal to every emergency, and able to bear 
any strain that has been brought upon them. They 
are seen to be as well fitted for a country broad as 
the continent as they were for the thirteen original 
colonies on the Atlantic coast; not only meeting the 
wants of the descendants of those who framed these 
institutions, but assimilating in a wonderful man- 
ner the millions of people who from all parts of the 
earth have found a home upon our shores. Party 
spirit has been strong and active with us from the 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 41 

first. The evils which we experience seem worse than 
those of which we read, and so the young American 
may suppose that party bitterness is worse to-day 
than ever before. But this is not so. No president has 
ever been more bitterly denounced than was Wash- 
ington. "The Father of his Country/' whose name 
is sacred to-day in the memory of every citizen of the 
republic, on the day when he voluntarily retired 
from the office of president, was assailed in the pub- 
lic press with language like this: — "The man who is 
the source of all the misfortunes of our country is 
this day reduced to a level with his fellow citizens, 
and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils 
upon the United States. Every heart in unison with 
the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to 
beat high with exultation that the name of Wash- 
ington from this day ceases to give a currency to 
political iniquity and legalize corruption. It is a 
subject of the greatest astonishment that a single 
individual should have carried his designs against 
the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy 
its very existence. This day (of Washington's re- 
tirement from office) ought to be a jubilee in the 
United States." I am certain that there is no such 
bitterness of party spirit to-day as there has been in 
the past, and that we are separated by it one from 
another in our social life, far less than ever before. 

Our presidents have not generally been the ablest 
men of the country. The true and fearless states- 
man inevitably makes enemies. He never experi- 
ences the woe pronounced upon those of whom all 
men speak well. But all parties have sought in their 
candidates popularity rather than ability; and few 
of our presidents in the last fifty years have been 



42 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

distinguished as statesmen. Jackson, although he 
proved to be more of a man than even his supporters 
suspected, was selected by the Democrats because 
he was available. So was Harrison by the Whigs 
in '4.9; Polk by the Democrats in '44; Taylor by the 
Whigs in '48; Pierce by the Democrats in '52; Lin- 
coln in '60 and Grant in '68 by the ^Republicans. 
In fact since 1824 the only persons who have become 
president as the reward of services in the ordinary 
field of politics and statesmanship are Martin Van 
Buren in '36, James Buchanan in '56, and Abraham 
Lincoln in '60. Yet so carefully has the executive 
power been guarded and so wisely have the different 
branches of the government been balanced, that very 
little, if any, positive evil has resulted from this fact. 
If we have had but little display of originality in our 
presidents, it is quite possible we may have found 
our compensation in increased safety. 

Two questions as old as the Constitution are 
still live questions in American politics — paper mon- 
ey and the tariff. The latter has been treated rather 
as a matter of expediency and experiment than of 
fixed principle. The former, in some way the cause 
of our present business embarrassments, is theoret- 
ically comprehended by every politician and business 
man, but practically seems to have exhausted the re- 
sources of our statesmanship. It is not, at all events, 
a question to be discussed here and now. 

We can not boast in this centennial year of any 
marvelous purity in our politics. The increased use 
of money in elections, the prevalence of corrupt rings 
in cities, the monstrous anomaly of a boss in local 
politics, the participation of congressmen in legis- 
lation affecting their own pecuniary interests, the 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 43 

schemes to defraud the government to which the pub- 
lic officials lend a helping hand, and worst of all the ' 
shame of a cabinet officer, are all occasions for the 
deepest regret. But amid all these evils, the direct 
or indirect legacy of the war, there is at least one 
sign full of hope. It is that the public conscience is 
not dead, that the people's sense of right is not dulled, 
that no statesman in power can find so direct and cer- 
tain a path to the hearts of the people as by the un- 
flinching and persistent prosecution and punishment 
of offenders against honesty and law. The voice of 
the great American people, in whose hands, after all, 
are the destinies of the republic, is to-day, "Let no 
guilty man escape." 

Our religious progress in the last hundred years 
has sympathized closely with our political. In every 
colony in the country before the Revolution there was 
more or less connection between church and state. 
The adoption of the Constitution put an end to this 
in great measure, and the drift of public opinion 
from that time to the present, has been resistlessly 
in one direction. To-day religion as a faith, and the 
church as an organism, are matters of individual con- 
science, and the secular theory of government is al- 
most universally accepted. Creeds, too, or formulated 
religion, have lost much of their hold upon the popu- 
lar mind. Religion is felt to be far more a life than 
a belief, not, indeed, a life without belief, but as- 
suredly not a belief without the life. The independ- 
ence generated by our political system has borne 
fruits in the realm of religion as seen in the multi- 
plication of sects, in the advanced thinking manifest- 
ing itself in denominations most carefully guarded by 
creeds, in the readiness with which the people pass 



44 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

from one denomination to another; while the gen- 
erally conservative character of religious thought in 
the country is revealed by the vast proportions of the 
leading denominations which hold fast to the old- 
time beliefs, and the comparative lack of growth of 
those denominations which have abandoned the faith 
of the fathers. Throughout the past hundred years 
there have been many alterations of intellectual and 
emotional religion ; and it can not be doubted that so 
long as man shall possess both mind and heart, the 
great facts of the spiritual world toward which we 
are all moving, will continue to affect him in dif- 
ferent ways at different times, now calling for the 
calm, intellectual survey of truth, and now exciting 
those powerful emotions which the word of God in 
its relation to human sin and salvation has so often 
aroused. But even in this respect our progress has 
been steadily away from fanaticism, superstition, and 
bigotry, and towards that intelligent faith, which, 
while looking at the things which are unseen and 
eternal, does not ignore the lessons taught by things 
which are seen and temporal. Nor has the general 
interest of the people in religion diminished, if we 
may judge from their zeal in erecting houses of wor- 
ship. In the days of the Eevolution there w T as one 
church for every seventeen hundred persons; now 
there is a church for every five hundred and twenty- 
nine. If the truly religious soul finds more comfort 
in studying the facts of the census report than the 
manifestations of religious life about him, let him 
not by any means be discouraged. We have made 
progress. Neither in public nor private life to-day 
have we any sentiment so bad as the blatant infi- 
delity and flippant unbelief of the Eevolutionary 







THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 45 

days. If the church is continually disgraced by the 
fall of unworthy members, it is no new thing. There 
was a Judas in the time of Christ; an Ananias and 
Sapphira in the time of the great apostolic revival; 
and simony itself takes its name from a baptized be- 
liever in the days of Peter and John. We have not 
many more cases to-day ; while never before has there 
issued from the church such a pure stream of Chris- 
tian beneficence as now; never before have there been 
sweeter examples of pure and undefiled religion in in- 
dividual lives. 

It would be pleasant, if time permitted, to speak 
of the. vast territory now embraced within our coun- 
try, so much larger than one hundred years ago; of 
our well-developed manufactures, able now, for the 
first time, to compete with Europe in her own mar- 
kets; of our untold wealth of mineral treasures; of 
general increase of comfort in the means and mode 
of living ; of the vastly augmented productions of our 
agriculture, aided by improved implements; of our 
increased facilities for intercommunication and trade 
by means of steamboats, canals, and railroads ; of our 
telegraphs speaking at once to the Pacific, the At- 
lantic, the Gulf, and whispering beneath the ocean 
to the nations on the other side. In the great Ex- 
hibition at Philadelphia, in the American depart- 
ment are evidences that the past century, this nation 
has neither been idle nor foolishly employed; but 
that in the development of its material resources it 
has shown a skill of which any nation on earth might 
be proud. 

And yet the real glory of man, which makes him 
"the paragon of animals," is not the wealth which 
his labor creates, but his intellect. The real glory 



46 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

of a nation is the cultivation of the intellectual and 
moral faculties of its people. No subject connected 
with our history presents a brighter view than edu- 
cation. From the first, the settlers of New England 
felt the need of education for their children, and were 
ready to provide for it at any expense of personal 
comfort to themselves. The system they adopted was 
their own, the product of their desires and their 
needs. It secured to their children in the com- 
mon school a plain but useful education. Not un- 
mindful of the wants of the church and the profes- 
sions, they early founded colleges for a higher edu- 
cation. Time has strengthened and enlarged this sys- 
tem, only to make it more dear to every American 
heart. The new states and territories have adopted 
the New England common school system; so that 
north and west the humblest child may gain an edu- 
cation, and in the south, progress of a most grati- 
fying character is making in the same direction. Out 
of the common school have grown the graded school 
and the high school. The range of study has been 
widened, the methods of teaching have been improved, 
and the qualifications of teachers have been raised; 
possibly by our system we have sacrificed something 
of the old time individual vigor and independence; 
but if so we must console ourselves with the thought 
that so long as all are well trained it matters not 
if they are trained alike. I need not speak of the 
millions of scholars in our schools, nor of the millions 
of dollars invested in school property. Every thriv- 
ing village is an example of the people's generous 
appreciation of education. It is regarded not as a 
luxury but as a necessity. The law says not that 
children may be educated, but that they must be. 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 47 

In 1776 there were nine colleges in the country. To- 
day there are five hundred. Some of these hardly de- 
serve the name, but they all serve, at least, to show 
the popular desire for a higher education. 

If, notwithstanding our schools and colleges, sta- 
tistics show that our country has still a large amount 
of illiteracy, it is due to causes outside of our edu- 
cational system, causes, too, which must operate 
much less powerfully in the future. Our system may 
have failed to secure the highest education, but it 
has made good education possible for all. Much in- 
deed remains to be done. Growth is the law of life. 
The wisest students best know how far short of an 
ideal standard our national education still is; but 
the past has been so full of progress and the present 
is so rich in promise, that there is no just cause for 
any feeling but hope respecting the educational future 
of our country. 

And now what of the political future? I have 
spoken of the hardy settlers by whom our country 
was colonized, of the heroes by whom our independ- 
ence was achieved, and of the statesmen by whom our 
government was established. They are not so far 
removed from us that the ties of personal sympathy 
are entirely sundered. Some of us have heard in our 
younger years, from the lips of an aged veteran, the 
story of the struggle for independence; or, in the 
thrice-told tale received from his fathers, have felt 
the joys and the sorrows of a half-civilized life in 
the wilderness. But between our early experience 
and that of our children, there has come a great gulf 
of blood. The patriotism and heroism of '76, eclipsed 
and yet glorified by the patriotism and heroism of 
'61, can never be to the coming generation what 



48 THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 

they were to us. From the records of this later strug- 
gle our children will draw their inspiration. Talk 
to them of heroism, of manliness, of self-devotion; 
they will point you not alone to Bunker Hill and 
Valley Forge, but to Gettysburg, to Fredericksburg,, 
to Vicksburg, to Antietam, to Sherman's march, to the 
battles of the Wilderness, to the long and final strug- 
gle for Richmond. Talk to them of the patient suf- 
fering of woman. They will tell you, not of the 
mothers of the Revolution, but of those mothers in 
these later times, who in the midst of plenty and a 
mature civilization, voluntarily sent forth from the 
luxury and love of home the bravest and the best to 
die for liberty and law. Talk to them of generals, 
whose deeds make the pages of our history radiant 
with glory, and they will sound the praises not alone 
of Greene and Putnam, or Warren and Schuyler, but 
of Grant and Sherman, Sheridan and Thomas. Talk 
to them of Christian statesmen adorning by their 
lives the country which they governed, and they will 
speak reverently the names of Washington and his 
honored associates, while they pronounce with ten- 
derness and tears the name of the patriot and martyr,. 
Abraham Lincoln. 

But in our just reverence for the noble living 
and dead of our own day, in our enthusiasm over 
the grand achievements of these few years, the salva- 
tion of the Union and the inauguration of univer- 
sal liberty, we must not forget the past, we must not 
ignore the future. We have emerged from a terrible 
civil war. The passions of the conflict are some- 
what allayed. It may be harder for the South, con- 
quered, wounded, bloody, its favorite institution 
prostrated forever, its slaves freemen, to lay aside 



THE NATION'S CENTENNIAL— 1876 49 

its resentments than for the victorious North. But 
as we remember the fidelity and patriotism of South- 
ern statesmen in the olden time, let us say to our 
Southern brethren: Meet us to-day; on this- cen- 
tennial anniversary of our common independence 
meet us, as your fathers met ours on the Fourth of 
July, 1776, in the interest of liberty and union. Meet 
us on the platform then and there framed by your own 
great statesman — the platform of "Liberty and Equal 
Eights." Let the differences of the past be forgotten 
in a common zeal for the highest interests of our 
common country. Let the courage so heroically ex- 
hibited on many a battlefield, when we were fight- 
ing each other, henceforth be reserved only for con- 
tests with the foes of our common country. We are 
brethren. Let there be peace and love between us. 
Let this day, with its memories sacred to you and to 
us alike, be the hour of complete and eternal recon- 
ciliation. 

Then, indeed, shall this centennial year witness, 
not the birth of a new nation, but a nation born again, 
born into a higher and nobler life; in which honor 
shall govern in politics as well as in business; in 
which patriotism shall be kindled into a new fervor; 
in which the manliness, the courage, and the piety 
of the fathers shall find a new expression in the sons ; 
in which the permanence of our republic shall be as- 
sured, by the higher tone of public and private mor- 
als, and the universal adoption of that grand old 
sentiment, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one 
and inseparable.'' 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW* 

I am to address to-night, as I suppose, an audience 
composed largely of young men who are engaged in 
studying law and of others, ladies and gentlemen, 
who individually or collectively feel a deep interest 
in these law students. The young men are fitting 
themselves not merely for a place in the profession, 
but, as I trust, for a place in the front ranks of the 
l)rofession, where, as you have often been told, there 
is more room than anywhere else. They can suc- 
ceed in their purpose only by becoming both a law- 
yer and an orator. Good sense and a knowledge of 
law will carry them safely through a multitude of 
cases — if they are so fortunate as to have a multi- 
tude — but there will surely come some occasions when 
facts and law will need to be transfigured as they 
can be only by the soul of the orator. Yet 
many lawyers who are faithful and successful stu- 
dents, never attain to real freedom in the practice 
of the highest part of their profession, because they 
are restrained by native timidity and distrust, which 
they might overcome but do not. Where is the man 
worth listening to who does not always feel more 
or less of this same timidity and distrust? Of course 
the man who has no sensibilities feels no reluctance 

^Delivered before a society of law students and their guests at the 
Yale Law School, February, 1881. 



52 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

to appear before an audience as a speaker. He does 
not suffer but his audience does. Men who have sen- 
sibilities, no matter how many times they may have 
faced the public, involuntarily shrink from appear- 
ing before an assembly for the purpose of address- 
ing it. In proof of this examples might be given 
almost without number. It is not because speakers 
have any coward blood in their veins and are afraid 
of their hearers ; for the true orator is always coura- 
geous. It is rather the result of the very conditions 
which are necessary to success. 

Cicero was unquestionably second only to De- 
mosthenes among the orators of antiquity, and he 
certainly entertained no poor opinion of his own mer- 
its; yet he declared that when he thought of the mo- 
ment when he must rise and speak in defence of a 
client, not only was he disturbed in mind, but he trem- 
bled in every limb of his body. 

The late Earl of Derby was a very fearless speak- 
er, his manner as far as possible removed from every 
appearance of embarrassment. Yet he said to Ma- 
caulay: "My throat and lips when I am going to 
speak are as dry as those of a man who is going to 
be hanged." 

The gifted author of Endymion, Disraeli, evident- 
ly had not forgotten his own early experience, when 
he wrote the description of his hero's first attempt 
at speaking in the House of Commons. "When he 
got on his legs his head swam, his heart beat so 
violently that it was like a convulsion preceding- 
death ; and though he was on his legs for only a few 
seconds, all the sorrows of his life seemed to pass 
before him." 

It cost Canning a desperate struggle to attain 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 53 

success in oratory, and lie never freed himself from 
a certain tremulous excitement before speaking. A 
friend, shaking hands with him one day just before 
Canning was to speak, exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Can- 
ning, how your hand trembles!" "Does it," said 
Canning. "Then I shall make a good speech." This 
does not mean that everybody who trembles in an- 
ticipation of making a speech, will make a good 
speech. The trembling may result from fear. It does 
mean that an impalpable something, which was not 
fear, but which in anticipation of the coming con- 
test, made the speaker's hand tremble, communicat- 
ing itself to the thought when the contest came, 
would make the hearts of the hearers vibrate like 
Canning's hand. 

John B. Gough, who certainly after he got fairly 
started made the most fearful experiments in ora- 
tory with the most serene confidence, told us in 
substance that, although he had addressed thousands 
upon thousands of audiences in England and Ameri- 
ca, he could not, to the last, think of facing an 
audience without that throbbing of the heart which 
young speakers know so well, and which old speakers 
seldom lose till their power as orators is ended. 

I have always admired Wendell Phillips as the 
prince of American orators. He attained the re- 
sults of eloquence at less expense of lungs and vital 
force than any other public speaker whom I have 
ever heard. His appearance on the platform was 
marked by an absolute composure which indicated 
complete self-possession. Yet, when in conversation 
with him I asked him if he ever felt reluctant to 
appear before an audience, his reply was : "Always. 
It is not so much the fear of failure as the thought, 



54 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

what can I possibly say that will pay all these peo- 
ple for coming together." The feeling is that what 
a speaker says to two thousand people ought to be 
two thousand times as good as what he says to a 
single person. And yet the speaker knows that 
practically he is addressing but a single person; for 
what he says, if it satisfy the taste and the judg- 
ment of one hearer, can just as well perform the 
same office for every hearer with no diminution of 
power. For the speaker is not in reality isolated 
and the audience as a solid body arrayed against 
him. He is in communication with each person in 
the audience and each person in communication with 
him. Thus every individual in the audience is iso- 
lated from all the rest, and the speaker is the only 
one who is not isolated. Mr. Gough said that at the 
beginning of an address he involuntarily selected in- 
dividuals in the audience to talk to; and if he suc- 
ceeded in interesting and pleasing them, he felt cer- 
tain of the rest of his hearers. This is a practice 
by no means confined to Mr. Gough, but it is one 
which I have never adopted. Experience is a hard 
school, but I early learned in it that all is not gold 
that glitters. In one of the first public speeches 
that I ever delivered — it was when I was a senior in 
college — I was cheered and delighted by a face in 
the audience beaming with a smiling radiance, as if 
a stream of unceasing delight were flowing through 
the heart at everything I said. Naturally pleased 
at such a tribute to my eloquence, I, at the close 
of the meeting, inquired of one of the prominent 
gentlemen present, who my admirer was. "O," said 
he, "he's a poor foolish fellow. He doesn't know 
anything." I did not explain why I made the inquiry. 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 55 

But that long-continued tribute to my eloquence 
had lost its value, and I retired from the scene a 
sadder and a wiser man. 

So great an orator as Charles James Fox once 
said when told that a certain speech read well, "Then 
it must have been a bad speech." The remark was 
a just one. But if the converse of that were true, 
and every speech which does not read well were a 
good speech, how happy very many speakers would 
be, and especially those who find not their speech 
but some scattered fragments of their speech the next 
day reported in the daily papers. A speech is made 
under one set of conditions, and is addressed to an 
audience in a certain mental and emotional state. 
It meets the requirements of the case and is a suc- 
cess. It is printed the next day in the daily paper 
as the reporter sees fit to have it printed. He can 
print it somewhat in the shape in which it was de- 
livered, or, with no special genius for murder, he 
can murder it. It is then read the next morning in 
cold blood and is pronounced lacking in connection 
of thought, or in strength of argument, or in what 
under the circumstances is certainly natural, in life. 
And so it is. But from what is thus read and con- 
demned, you get no more just idea of the speech 
which was delivered, as it was delivered, than you 
would get of the genius of Shakespere from reading 
Clark's Concordance ; or of Daniel Webster's speeches 
from reading Noah Webster's Dictionary. Doubt- 
less Daniel's thoughts are all in Noah's Dictionary; 
but the arrangement is different. 

There have been many men eminent both as law- 
yers and as orators. A legal mind and eloquence 
therefore are not incompatible. On the other hand 

-5 



56 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

there have been examples without number of men 
who possessed a legal mind and great knowledge of 
the law, who were able to instruct the court and 
the jury by the thoroughness of their investigations 
and the soundness of their logic, nay, who by the 
sheer force of their facts skillfully arranged, were 
able to interest and convince the jury, who yet never 
attained to real eloquence even in the court room, 
and were still less effective speakers outside of the 
court room. And there have been examples, less nu- 
merous indeed, because eloquence is a rare gift, of 
men who were eloquent in the popular assembly, on 
the platform, or in the deliberative body, who were 
not famous as lawyers, and in all probability never 
would have been, had they devoted themselves faith- 
fully and exclusively to the work of that profession. 
A legal mind is the gift of God; and eloquence is 
the gift of God. Sometimes a lawyer has both gifts, 
and sometimes only one. They who have neither are 
lawyers only by courtesy. 

I have a higher respect for the thoroughly equipped 
and accomplished lawyer than for any other class 
of intellectual men. The law is a noble science; 
and it may be so practiced as to be as elevating in its 
influence on the lawyer as its study is on the stu- 
dent. But there are serious hindrances to this. The 
habit of appearing for the wrong side and arguing 
against one's own convictions, always deadening in 
its effect; the constant view of litigants when they 
are at their worst ; the necessity of dealing with mat- 
ters of little interest save to the excited and angered 
client, with cases in which little more than a busi- 
ness interest can be felt, and in which eloquence 
would be absolutely out of place ; and in a majority of 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 57 

instances, with cases in which, abstractly considered, 
only the head and not the heart of the lawyer must be 
engaged — all these things tend to make a majority of 
the profession, while they are clear in their percep- 
tions and logical in their reasoning, wanting in that 
higher eloquence which springs from the heartfelt 
appreciation of great truths contemplated as affect- 
ing human interests. That they do not always pro- 
duce this result is greatly to the credit of those who 
rise superior to these adverse influences. And when 
a lawyer does rise above these influences, acute, 
sharp-sighted, discriminating, knowing the law, and 
knowing men, he will prove himself an orator when- 
ever the great occasion comes to him in the court 
room. But if he pass out of the court room into 
that wider domain which comprehends questions of 
government and national policy, and human wel- 
fare, he will bring to the discussion of those questions 
a better trained mind and a greater capacity for the 
highest eloquence than the man of any other pro- 
fession whatever. You can practice law so that it 
will be no more ennobling than a trade and pass 
from it to the legislature or to Congress and carry 
with you no more inspiration than you felt in a 
Justice's court; or, you may so practice it that every 
experience shall result in growth, and all the natural 
fountains of eloquence in you shall be deepened and 
sweetened. 

Then again the lawyer as a public speaker has 
some manifest advantages over others. Nothing is 
so discouraging to a clergyman as to prepare a good 
sermon and then, when he goes to the church to 
preach it, find that most of the congregation for 
whom it was prepared have remained at home. Noth- 



58 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

ing of this kind happens to a lawyer. He is always 
sure of an audience, and of all the audience that 
has anything to do with his case, or that he need 
have anything to do with in order to gain his case. 
The state provides that certain persons shall be there 
and hear hiin. They are sworn to hear him. The 
state pays them for their sufferings. He is the only 
man who has a people paid to listen to him. They 
must give him a respectful, if not interested, atten- 
tion. Outside of this small number of persons who 
are to decide his case, the attendance of the public, as 
in other assemblies, will be regulated by the prevalent 
opinion as to whether the proceedings will be in- 
teresting or not. A large attendance of persons not 
directly connected with the case will undoubtedly 
stimulate the lawyer to a higher exertion. But if 
he is a true lawyer he will not speak to these spec- 
tators, but will speak always to court or jury. I 
have sat in a court room crowded to its utmost 
capacity, and have listened to the argument of a 
lawyer whom I knew to be a true man to the bottom 
of his heart, always strong when he knew he was 
right and always weak when he knew he was wrong, 
as every true man is. I have hung upon his lips 
pleading for the life of his client, till my sympathy 
with the prisoner, and my conviction of his innocence 
and his danger became almost insupportable. Yet 
the prisoner was no more to me when I entered the 
court room than any man on the other side of the 
globe. "All for Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him or 
he to Hecuba?" But the prisoner was something 
more to the lawyer who stood between him and death. 
And so nobly did this lawyer fulfil the solemn trust 
that none could doubt that the occasion was grand 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 59 

enough to justify the deep emotion of both speaker 
and hearers. The oratory of the lawyer, then, ought 
to be in some respects the best possible kind of ora- 
tory; and it is. He deals with facts and with prin- 
ciples. Every case is a real case. The material for 
his argument lies in the facts developed by the testi- 
mony or in the precedents by which the law has 
been interpreted. When a clergyman on Monday 
morning begins to think vaguely about what he shall 
preach on next, he is like Adam and Eve outside the 
gates of Paradise — "the world is all before him where 
to choose" ; and he is nearly as wretched as they were. 
But the lawyer is shut in from the very first to a 
definite subject and a definite object, the securing 
of a verdict for his client. He knows that anything 
less than this is a failure. He is less tempted, 
therefore, than men in other departments of life, 
where no verdict is to be immediately rendered, 
to sacrifice success to the gratification of his vanity, 
and to say things for momentary applause, that, per- 
haps, by distracting the hearer's attention may 
destroy the effect of what really pertains to the case. 
His own reputation will be enhanced far more 
by gaining a verdict through his sound argu- 
ment than by the highest eloquence that is unsuc- 
cessful. Of all men, he is most under bonds to 
self-interest, to think least of himself and most of 
his cause. As a consequence judicial eloquence by 
right takes a first place in the domain of oratory. For 
true oratory is never presented for its own sake, but 
as a means for attaining an end outside of itself. You 
do not listen to it with idle admiration or with the 
exquisite delight of a cultivated taste as you look at 
the production of the Fine Arts. You think, you 



GO ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

feel, you believe, you act, as you would not, but for 
this controlling force which has entered into your 
brain and heart and now compels you to do its bid- 
ding. No such result as this follows usually or natur- 
ally from painting or sculpture. As we gaze at them 
the skill of the artist is a prominent object of thought. 
"Nature," says Sir Thomas Browne, "is the art of 
God." Yes, but His is an absolutely creative art, the 
mighty products of which spread all over the earth in 
beauty and in glory, or, stretched before us in that 
most sublime picture which human eye has ever gazed 
upon, the starry heavens in a clear winter's night, 
men look upon with admiration or even awe, and, 
while their very souls are thrilled with the sense of 
beauty or sublimity, it may be that no thought of the 
great artist enters their minds. But with human art 
and human artists this is not so; and that, not be- 
cause the human artist is supposed or expected to 
surpass the divine. There is a large field in which 
art may improve upon nature. The useful arts all 
do this. But wherever nature and art come into 
direct competition there can be no question as to 
which is superior. You can not by any combination 
of elements produce anything so wholesome for the 
lungs as the pure air of heaven. You can make no 
drink that will quench thirst like cold water. No 
light is so pleasant to the eye as daylight. No painter 
can make a flower more beautiful than nature has 
made it. No sculptor can surpass the models which 
nature has provided. When, therefore, you look at a 
beautiful painting of a flower your admiration is 
not mainly for the beauty of the flower — you have 
seen thousands far more beautiful and after a brief 
inspection have thrown them away. What you ad- 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 61 

mire is the skill of the artist in the reproduction of 
the loveliness of nature. I know that painting and 
sculpture do much beside exciting our admiration 
for the artist's skill. The artist may have had a 
great and noble thought and, as you follow it, you may 
forget the artist and even his work. JBut, neverthe- 
less, the truth remains that in the contemplation of 
the fine arts, the artist himself is not improperly a 
central figure in our thoughts. 

The same is true to a certain extent of the poet. 
But it is not true of the orator. Only to a very lim- 
ited extent is true oratory ever designed simply to 
please. Never is the attention of the hearer direct- 
ed to the skill of the orator as the leading object of 
thought. If it ever happens that the net result of an 
oration, address, sermon, is admiration for the speak- 
er, the performance must be set down as a failure. 
It may have accomplished all that its author intend- 
ed. But if he intended no more than that, you may 
call him whatever else you please, he certainly does 
not deserve the name of orator. For an orator is 
a man with positive beliefs, definite purposes, and 
settled plans ; and when he speaks it is to win others 
to his beliefs, purposes, and plans. Failing in this,. 
no matter how much admiration he may excite for 
his literary skill, he will be the first to feel that his 
performance was a failure. 

The true orator, then, does not aim to be brilliant 
or eloquent. He aims to gain the end for which he 
speaks. To be applauded as eloquent and yet see 
his client condemned, to be applauded as eloquent 
and yet see his cause voted down, to be applauded as 
eloquent and yet see his people act just as they would 
have acted if he had never spoken, is not pleasant to a 



G2 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

man who has a soul large enough to speak of. When- 
ever this happens, the speaker in some way has made 
a great mistake. He has failed to fasten the atten- 
tion of his hearers upon those considerations which 
make him believe that his client is innocent, or his 
cause just, or the truth he utters important. Con- 
sciously or unconsciously he has interposed himself 
between the truth and the hearers, and has thereby 
sacrificed the cause, of which he was the unskillful, if 
not the unworthy, advocate. 

Now the lawyer knows that though he clothe him- 
self* with eloquence as with a garment, if he fails to 
gain a verdict for his clients, he fails utterly. And 
so in a practical way he deals with real cases; and 
whatever feeling. shows itself in his argument, will be 
that feeling which is the mother of eloquence, born 
of the subject itself. Confining his attention to the 
case, he makes the jury think of it and not of him; 
and so when they give him a verdict, it is often with- 
out the slightest suspicion that his skill has helped 
them to a decision. They may even think little of 
him as an orator, while by their decision they pay the 
highest tribute to his powers. Thus, the bank presi- 
dent who acted as foreman of the jury in a case 
in which Rufus Choate appeared as counsel, said: 
"Knowing Mr. Choate's skill in making white appear 
black, and black white, I made up my mind at the 
outset that he should uot fool me. He tried all his 
arts but it was of no use. I just decided according 
to the law and the evidence." "Of course you gave 
your verdict against Mr. Choate's client?'' "Why, 
no. We gave a verdict for his client. But then we 
couldn't help it. He had the law and the evidence 
on his side." 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 63 

So the countryman, who had been serving on a 
jury before which Mr. Scarlett, afterward Lord 
Abinger, had repeatedly appeared as counsel, being 
asked what he thought of the leading counsel, re- 
plied: "Well, that lawyer Brougham be a wonderful 
man. He can talk, he can. But I don't think now't 
of lawyer Scarlett." "Indeed? You surprise me. Why, 
you have been giving him all the verdicts." "O, 
there's nothing in that," said the juror. "He be so 
lucky, you see, he be always on the right side." The 
truth is that Scarlett was such an admirable speaker, 
adapting his thought and style perfectly to the sim- 
plicity of the jury, that they never discovered that he 
was either aiding them or leading them. He made 
them not only think his thoughts after him but even 
believe that all the while they were thinking their 
own thoughts. Yet when Mr. Scarlett went into Par- 
liament, he failed utterly as did that other great jury 
lawyer, Erskine. Their eloquence emptied the benches 
so rapidly that Macaulay calls them "dinner bells." 
It is not very difficult to tell why they failed. Both 
felt that they were addressing a different grade of 
men from the ordinary jury, that they had to deal 
with men more familiar with the parliamentary arena 
than themselves and better acquainted with govern- 
mental questions. Indeed Sheridan said to Erskine: 
"Erskine, you are afraid of Pitt, and that is the flabby 
part of your character." 

I have known many men who were admirable in 
their management of a case in court, who were insuf- 
ferably dull in discussing general principles and ques- 
tions of practical legislation. 

If a man is to be an effective speaker anywhere, 
his manhood must come to the front. This manhood 



64 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

is not body, it is not brains, it is not character, it is 
not courage. It is all of these combined. Why is 
it that essentially the same thought uttered by one 
person will produce no effect, and uttered by another 
person will be exceedingly impressive? It is not a mat- 
ter of elocution merely. It is not merely a difference 
of style. There is something almost inexplicable about 
it. But in the last analysis it comes to about this, 
that in the one case there is seen to be a man back of 
the thought and in the other there isn't. In the one 
case there is a soul making its demands upon your 
soul ; in the other there is no soul appealing to yours. 
Eeal men, true men, learned men, even earnest men, 
men so good in every respect that you wonder that 
they fail as speakers, do fail, and I know of no reason 
unless it be that through some cowardly self -con- 
sciousness they hide their real manhood, instead of 
letting it come to the front at the moment when it 
is most needed, the moment when they specially de- 
sire to move men by the combined powers of mind 
and soul. For them there is never anything but 
the "small and cold pattering of rain." Never does 
"the thunder cloud descend upon the Giant Peak." 
Never does there come the one flash, the one peal 
echoing through creation like the angry voice of Him 
whose throne is the heaven and whose footstool is the 
earth. For these men there is no possibility of elo- 
quence because there is never any accumulation of 
feeling and of force. 

Yet eloquence — that characteristic of human 
speech which not one of you can define and which 
every one of you has felt and never fails to recog- 
nize by the electric thrill which passes through you 
whenever its power is revealed — eloquence has as 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 65 

many forms as the human soul has feelings. Never 
is it mightiest when it voices the most turbulent and 
noisy emotions unless these have been aroused by 
gross injustice, and not always even then. Not in the 
earthquake, not in the great and strong wind which 
rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks ; not 
in the fire, did God reveal himself to his chosen proph- 
et standing upon the mount, but in the still small 
voice. And so in every age, and in every civilized 
land, the deepest and holiest feelings of man's nature 
have been stirred by forms of eloquence as unlike the 
flaming passion of Chatham and Demosthenes, as the 
still small voice in which God spoke to Elijah was 
unlike the thunderings and the lightnings, the black- 
ness and the darkness and the tempest in which he 
spoke to his people at Mt. Sinai. 

While all eloquence is born of emotion, it is never- 
theless true that an unemotional man may be an ex- 
cellent lawyer; from which it follows that an excel- 
lent lawyer need not be eloquent. I think that 
emotion, tenderness of feeling, quickness of sympathy,, 
are less important as means of success in the law 
than anywhere else. Indeed I have sometimes ques- 
tioned whether they are not a positive hindrance, 
rather than a help to what is usually called success 
at the bar. An accurate knowledge of all the facts 
of a case, and of all the law which affects the case, 
and calm cold logic in applying the law to the facts 
will win every case that ought to be won, in the 
court of last resort, if not in those where less dis- 
ciplined minds render a verdict. 

The great want of our modern oratory is compact 
energy. As Brougham describes it, "It seems to be~ 
the principle never to leave anything unsaid that can 



OG ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

be said on any one topic ; to run down every idea that 
is started; to let nothing pass; and leave nothing to 
the reader, but harass him with anticipating every- 
thing that could possibly strike his mind/' — in which 
statement Brougham has unwittingly given an illus- 
tration of the very fault of which he complains. It 
is a very grave fault. It tends to reduce all thoughts, 
all facts, all principles to one dead level, and that a 
level of mediocrity. If one fact has greater signifi- 
cance than another, who is to give it its prominence 
if not the orator? And this question has a greater 
significance for the lawyer than for any other class 
of public speakers. There is no more intolerable 
bore in the universe, I say it in compassion of unnum- 
bered juries yet to be summoned, and who are at the 
mercy of the profession, than the lawyer, who with- 
out discrimination between the important and the 
unimportant, persists in making the intelligent jury 
travel over every inch of the great Sahara of evidence 
instead of taking them to the only three or four de- 
lightful oases in which alone is there any evidence 
of life. Said Chief Justice Ellsworth : "Give me three 
or four important points in a case, and I will throw 
away all the minor considerations." It is simply a 
question whether you will make the important things 
tell, or make nothing tell. It is simply a question 
whether you shall spend as much time in discoursing 
on the qualities of the alabaster box of ointment, as 
you do upon the efficacy of repentance which brought 
to the woman who was a sinner the forgiveness of 
the Eedeemer of the world. 

A speech that is made up of multitude of parts, 
each of which is elaborated with abundance of epi- 
thets, becomes intolerable. If, however, the parts are 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 67 

dwelt upon with conciseness, if every fact is laid bare, 
if the hearer can see that the orator is wasting no 
words, but is putting his case before hiin with all the 
clearness and order which careful study can com- 
mand, and with as much rapidity as the nature of the 
case will admit, the orator is then doing the best that 
in such a case is possible. To dwell upon each part 
and exhaust its power, leaves nothing to be said 
effectively when the parts have been combined. You 
remember the famous scene between Canning and 
Brougham during the session of the House of Com- 
mons in 1823. Mr. Canning had a few days before 
made a speech of a peculiarly stinging character to 
which Brougham was waiting for an opportunity to 
reply. The opportunity at length came. "Upon that 
occasion/' says a writer, "the oration of Brougham 
was disjointed and ragged, and apparently without 
aim or application. He careered over the whole an- 
nals of the world, and collected every instance in 
which genius had prostituted itself at the footstool of 
power, or principle had been sacrificed for the vanity 
or the lucre of place ; but still there was no allusion to 
Canning, and no connection, that ordinary men could 
discover, with the business before the House. When, 
however, he had collected every material which suited 
his purpose, when the mass had become big and black, 
he bound it about and about with the cords of illustra- 
tion and argument; when its union was secure, he 
swung it round and round with the strength of a giant 
and the rapidity of a whirlwind, in order that its im- 
petus and effects might be the more tremendous ; and 
while doing this, he ever and anon glared his eye, and 
pointed his finger, to make the aim and the direction 
sure. Canning himself was the first that seemed to 



68 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

be aware where and bow terrible was to be the col- 
lision; and he kept writhing his body in agony, and 
rolling his eye in fear as if anxious to find some shel- 
ter from the impending bolt. The House soon caught 
the impression, and every man in it was glancing fear- 
fully, first toward the orator and then toward the 
Secretary. There was, save the voice of Brougham, 
which growled in that undertone of muttered thun- 
der which is so fearfully audible, and of which no 
speaker of the day was fully master but himself, a 
silence as if the angel of retribution had been flaring 
in the faces of all parties the scroll of their personal 
and political sins. The stiffness of Brougham's figure 
had vanished; his features seemed concentrated al- 
most to a point; he glanced toward almost every part 
of the House in succession; and sounding the death- 
knell of the Secretary's forbearance and prudence with 
both his clinched hands upon the table, he hurled at 
him an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more 
torturing in its effects, than had ever been hurled at 
mortal man within the same walls. The result was 
instantaneous, was electric. It was as when the thun- 
der cloud descends upon the Giant Peak; one flash, 
one peal, the sublimity vanished, and all that remained 
was a small and cold pattering of rain. Canning 
started to his feet, and was able only to utter the un- 
guarded words, 'It is false/ to which followed a dull 
chapter of apologies." You have never witnessed 
such a performance as this of Brougham's just de- 
scribed. But do you suppose that speech was con- 
structed on the easy principles of Southey, saying 
what you have to say as perspicuously and briefly as 
possible and without art? Is not the ragged and 
disjointed gathering of facts purposely ragged and 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW G9 

disjointed? Is not the failure to refer each fact, as 
stated, at once to Canning made purposely? Did he 
not see clearly what terrible force could be given by 
combining all these facts and hurling his charge once 
and for all at his opponent? 

I trust I shall excite jealousy in no member of the 
profession when I say that, as a jury lawyer, Lord 
Erskine has never had a superior. Doubtless he was 
eloquent, but his eloquence seems to me to have been 
very much over-rated. At all events he did not owe 
his success primarily to his eloquence, nor is it this 
which constitutes the main charm of his addresses 
to the jury. He was not a profound lawyer, but, like 
Fox, he had a wonderful capacity for making the most 
of the labors of other people. He took the decisions 
which blackletter lawyers searched out for him, and 
from these he formulated a principle applicable to 
the case in hand, which principle runs through his 
Avhole address like a river through a landscape. To 
this, every fact and principle are made to contribute. 
The attention of the jury is directed not to many 
things, but to one thing. He was thus a constant help 
to the jury, showing them a clear way out of the 
complications of the case. We are not surprised, there- 
fore, that his hearers never yawned or went to sleep 
under his oratory; that after the court and jury had 
listened for days to witnesses and to other barristers, 
till their endurance was nearly exhausted, he had but 
to address them for five minutes, when every feeling 
of weariness would vanish, and they would hang 
spell-bound upon his words. But to me the greatest 
charm in the arguments of Erskine is the perfect 
knowledge of human nature which he displays, and 
the confidential relations which he always establishes 



70 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

between himself and the jury. He seems to be not an 
advocate begging something of the jury, but the 
private counsel of the jury itself, advising them what 
under the circumstances is the best decision for them 
to come to. And juries all felt this to be so. It 
might be said of him, as the Duke of Wellington said 
of Sir James Scarlett, that when he addressed a jury 
there were thirteen jurymen. The perfect confidence 
with which in his perorations he dispenses with any 
special appeal to the jury, assuming that as a matter 
of course they will decide as he has shown them to be 
proper, is as beautiful as it is justifiable by the cir- 
cumstances of the case. Doubtless "he had every 
personal advantage, an attractive person, a mag- 
netism of the eye which was almost irresistible, a 
diction pure, simple, and mellifluous, and action such 
that it was a common remark of men who observed his 
motions that they resembled those of a blood-horse; 
as light, as limber, as much betokening strength and 
speed, as free from all gross superfluity or encum- 
brance."' All these things were doubtless helps, but 
they are nothing compared with the strong common 
sense, the knowledge of human nature, and that per- 
fect unity of thought which forced every jury he en- 
countered to put itself under his guidance, and to 
look at things as he looked at them. I do not under- 
rate the eloquence of Erskine. But strike out from 
his arguments in behalf of Lord George Gordon, 
Hardy, Stockdale, Frost, or Bingham, every passage 
which is eloquent, and the great arguments would still 
remain, to be perused by scholars and lawyers, with 
ever increasing astonishment and delight. He gained 
his cases by the charmingly natural, clear, and logical 
manner in which he presented controlling arguments. 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 71 

And here I might speak of Rufus Choate, certain- 
ly the most remarkable forensic speaker this country 
has produced, an orator in many respects superior 
even to Webster, in wit, in learning, in affluence of 
diction, in gorgeous rhetoric, in the glorious blazonry 
of imagination, in myriad-mindedness, in capacity to 
sound the sweetest notes through the whole gamut of 
oratory. And yet superior to Webster as he con- 
fessedly was in the variety and flexibility of his char- 
acteristics, I think Choate would have said of Webster 
what Macbeth said of Banquo : 

There is none but he 
Whose being I do fear : and under him i? 

My Genius is rebuked, as it is said 
Mark Antony's was by Caesar's. 

Were I to attempt a description of the character- 
istics of this wonderful man, and of the various meth- 
ods by which he gained his victories at the bar, I 
should soon be reduced to the despair of the stenog- 
rapher, who, attempting to report one of Choate's 
wonderful speeches, at last threw down his pencil, ex- 
claiming, "Who can report chain-lightning." A 
heavenly body of unusual magnitude and brilliancy 
he undoubtedly was, but with an orbit so eccentric 
that its path in the heavens can not be accurately cal- 
culated from a single appearance. We must see more 
than one Rufus Choate, before we can explain all the 
secrets of his success. 

But the best representative of the lawyer and the 
orator, whether English or American, is Daniel Web- 
ster. His pre-eminence in both respects can not be dis- 
puted. The qualities which made him eminent as an 
advocate are the same qualities which made him emi- 

-6 



72 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

nent as an orator in the Senate. At the bar and in 
the Senate it is the same Daniel Webster who speaks. 
He himself said of the law: "I regard it as the great 
ornament and one of the chief defences and securities 
of free institutions. It is indispensable to and con- 
servative of public liberty. If I am anything, it is 
the law, that noble profession, that sublime science, 
that has made me what I am. . . . An eminent law- 
yer can not be a dishonest man. Tell me a man is dis- 
honest, and I will answer he is no lawyer. He can 
not be, because he is careless and reckless of justice; 
the law is not in his heart, is not the standard and 
rule of his conduct." Here we have very nearly the 
key-note of Webster's oratory. It is the obligation of 
the law and of the Constitution as the highest law. 
The principles which he advocated he ennobled and 
glorified as being in some way essential to the perfect 
working of this great system of law. Trained as a 
Puritan, his soul never freed itself from those prin- 
ciples of the Divine law which give reality and earn- 
estness to life and solemnity to duty ; never denied its 
responsibility to God, the thought of which respon- 
sibility Webster himself declared to be the greatest 
thought his mind had ever entertained. This man 
was a giant ; and he always moved with a gigantic de- 
liberation and power. Whether he pleads in the 
state courts for the punishment of crime and impress- 
es on the jury the sense of duty, omnipresent like the 
Deity, or instructs the Supreme Court of the nation 
as to the true meaning of the Constitution, or in the 
Senate Chamber deals death blows to political here- 
sies that would subvert the Constitution, he is always 
the same, — grave, earnest, grand. Here is no light 
play of the fancy; but on rare occasions his imagina- 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 73 

tion takes a flight across expanses, which no fancy 
can traverse. Here are no harmless scintillations of 
wit and humor. His wit cuts, and his humor is grim. 
Here is no legal or constitutional or political empiri- 
cism, explaining the whole from observation of a 
part; it is science, explaining the parts from knowl- 
edge of the whole. Here is no insinuating advocate 
seeking to establish confidential relations with the 
jury. It is the Chief Justice, under God, laying down 
the law. Seemingly this man was of a nature cold 
and hard as his own New Hampshire granite. Ah, 
but there is a sublime power in the universe that can 
make even the mountains tremble. And so when the 
great occasion came to him and he stood in the Sen- 
ate pleading for the life of the nation, with what a sub- 
lime emotion did his soul kindle as his imagination 
pictured before him the possibilities of the future of 
the country — that future which we have seen with all 
its desolation of blood — and wrung from him that 
earnest prayer, which God in his infinite mercy grant- 
ed, by taking the great orator from the evil to come. 

The power of Webster's Reply to Hayne lies in 
the absolutely demonstrative character of the argu- 
ment, the positiveness of the speaker's convictions as 
to what was right, and his entire surrender to the 
feelings which naturally grew out of those convic- 
tions. 

Read the account of the circumstances attending 
the delivery of that great speech. "He never rose on 
an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary audi- 
ence more self-possessed. The calmness of superior 
strength was visible everywhere; in countenance, 
voice, and bearing. A deep-seated conviction of the 
extraordinary character of the emergency and of his 



74 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

ability to control seemed to possess hiin wholly. It 
needed only his exordium to enchain the attention. 
As he went on there was scarcely a dry eye in the 
Senate; all hearts were overcome; grave judges and 
men grown old in dignified life turned aside their 
heads to conceal the evidences of their emotion. In 
one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of 
Massachusetts men. When he alluded to Massachu- 
setts, their feelings were strained to the highest ten- 
sion ; and when the orator, concluding his encomium 
on the land of their birth, turned, intentionally or 
otherwise, his burning eye full upon them, they shed 
tears like girls. The exulting rush of feeling with 
which he went through the peroration threw a glory 
over his countenance like inspiration. The swell and 
roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the spell- 
bound audience in deep and melodious cadence, as 
waves upon the shore of the far-resounding sea. The 
Miltonic grandeur of his words was the fit expression 
of the thought, and raised his hearers up to his theme. 
His voice, exerted to its utmost power, penetrated 
every recess or corner of the Senate, penetrated even 
the ante-rooms and stairways as he pronounced in 
deepest tones of pathos those words of solemn signifi- 
cance with which the great speech ends." 

Alas ! Alas ! Can you find this exulting confidence 
and earnestness in his memorable speech on the 7th 
of March, 1850? For some reason that speech was 
not in its tone what the country until within a few 
days had expected. He no longer speaks for Massa- 
chusetts. Slavery is shown to be a patriarchal insti- 
tution not forbidden even by the teachings of Christ. 
He will vote for the Fugitive Slave Bill. He will 
not re-enact the law of God by which in virtue of 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 75 

climate slavery lias been excluded from New Mexico. 
The Wilmot Proviso is unnecessary. Whenever Tex- 
as is ready to be divided into four slave states, he is 
ready to vote for them. Anti-slavery societies and 
publications have done great mischief. Gentlemen 
do not mean secession when they talk of it, and, 
with a glimmer of the old eloquence, it is over. 

Mr. Calhoun, his life-long opponent, the great 
apostle of slavery, was there to hear him — almost 
the last time he came to the Senate — to hear him and 
to approve of much that he said. What was the mat- 
ter with Webster? The old enthusiasm and earnest- 
ness which, on the 26th of January, 1830, had rung 
out through the ante-rooms and stairways of the 
Senate Chamber, as the last words of his great speech, 
"Liberty and union, now and forever, one and in- 
separable,'- were gone. And now in a contest in 
which the friends of freedom and of slavery were 
struggling for the control of unborn states and of 
the future policy of the nation, the great man, born 
and nurtured among the hills of New Hampshire, 
and representing freedom-loving Massachusetts, is 
giving aid and comfort to South Carolina and Geor- 
gia. He loved the Union, but something had gone out 
of him — something that in 1830 kindled his soul to 
the highest eloquence. My admiration for the great 
orator is almost unbounded. Men still say that his 
Seventh of March speech was a great speech. It was 
the great brain, still true to its life-long thought, the 
obligation of law ; but the great heart, full of love for 
freedom, is not there. True earnestness springs from 
deep convictions of truth and duty. "I have heard," 
says Emerson, "an experienced counsellor say, that 
he never feared the effect upon a jury of a lawyer who 



76 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

does not believe in his heart that his client ought to 
have a verdict. If he does not believe it, his unbelief 
will appear to the jury, despite all his protestations 
and will become their unbelief. This is that law 
whereby a work of art, of whatever kind, sets us in 
the same state of mind wherein the artist was when 
he made it. That which we do not believe we can 
not adequately say, though we may repeat the words 
never so often. It was this conviction which Sweden- 
borg expressed, when he described a group of per- 
sons in the spiritual world endeavoring in vain to 
articulate a proposition which they did not believe; 
but they could not, though they twisted and folded 
their lips even to indignation." 

It is with an old civilization and established con- 
ditions of society somewhat as it is with the old age 
of an individual. The fiery eloquence, the words that 
move a whole people, belong for the most part to 
the age of unsolved questions of government and of 
new and revolutionary crises in history. Demosthenes 
speaks when Grecian liberty is in danger. Cicero, 
when the life of Eome is threatened by conspiracy. 
Chatham and the brilliant galaxy of British orators, 
when English policy was shaking the world. And 
Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Lincoln, Phillips, when 
questions were raised whose answers were to make 
the new world the brightest spot on earth, or were 
to extinguish here the light of liberty and republican 
government forever. Great occasions, great themes, 
made great men's souls thrill with the earnestness of 
true eloquence. 

Not twice in a thousand years does there come 
such an occasion as that which placed Abraham Lin- 
coln on the battlefield at Gettysburg, November, 1863, 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 77 

to consecrate the soldiers' cemetery. The past, the 
present, and the future threw their converging rays 
upon him and marked him as the central figure of 
the continent and of the age. The slaughter and suf- 
fering of the past, the care and anguish of the pres- 
ent, the uncertainty and gloom of the future, min- 
gling with brighter memories of the more distant past 
and brighter possibilities of the more distant future, 
were to him as they must have been to any one, an 
inspiration, and drew from him those words, so 
characteristic, so tender, so full of feeling and of 
thoughts, which form a gem of oratory and will be 
cherished in the memory of men longer than any oth- 
er words which have been spoken by orator or poet 
in the last half century. 

Great occasions and great men are perhaps alike 
rare. But when the great occasion has come, the 
world has seldom suffered for the want of the great 
man to meet it. If we have now no Websters that can 
reply to Hayne, let us thank God that we have no 
Haynes that need to be replied to. If we have no 
Lincolns that can consecrate our Gettysburgs, let us 
thank God that we are not likely to have any Get- 
tysburgs that will need to be consecrated. 

Genius sometimes makes an orator, but very rare- 
ly a lawyer. Study, discipline, and culture are need-, 
ed to perfect the latter. Take William Pitt, after- 
wards Lord Chatham, and William Murray, Lord 
Mansfield, as examples. No man ever ruled the British 
Commons with such absolute and imperious sway 
as Pitt. Yet, as Macaulay tells us, "he had never 
applied himself steadily to any branch of knowledge. 
He never became familiar even with the rules of the 
House of which he was the brightest ornament. He 



78 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

bad never studied public law as a system; and was 
indeed so ignorant of tbe wbole subject tbat George 
tbe Second, on one occasion, complained bitterly tbat 
a man who bad never read Vattel should presume to 
undertake tbe direction of foreign affairs. But these 
defects were more than redeemed by high and rare 
gifts, by a strange power of inspiring great masses 
of men with confidence and affection, by an eloquence 
which not only delighted the ear, but stirred the 
blood and brought tears into the eyes, and by orig- 
inality in devising plans, and by vigor in executing 
them. Murray, on the other hand, is admitted to 
have been superior to Pitt as a debater, his mind more 
perfectly trained, his memory enriched with larger 
stores of knowledge, his argument more logical, his 
wealth of illustration greater, his copiousness and 
grace of diction unsurpassed. We can not but ad- 
mire the simplicity, the clearness, the candor, the 
absence of ostentation or of striving for effect, which 
characterize the public speeches of Murray and make 
him a delightful example of persuasive eloquence. 
But he was not highly emotional and had little power 
of moving the passions of others. In the terrible 
debates of the exciting period in which they lived, 
Pitt was perfectly at home. In the pitiless storm 
of his fiery eloquence, the passionless logic of Murray 
was as powerless to control Parliament as it would 
have been to restrain a mob. To be held up to 
odium as an enemy of his country by this fierce flam- 
ing angel of vengeance was more than Murray could 
stand. He therefore demanded and received the of- 
fice of Chief Justice and retired from the unpleasant 
conflicts of the lower house. Great jurist as he was, 
he was afraid of a man who had never studied law, 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 79 

and who, if he had devoted himself to the practice of 
law in the courts, would in all probability have made 
a conspicuous failure; for the qualities which lifted 
Pitt so high above all his associates in Parliament, 
were just the qualities which it is most dangerous 
for a lawyer to depend upon. I suspect that the 
high tragedy which Lord Chatham made so great 
a success in the House of Lords a little more than 
a century ago, would to-day, if presented in the leg- 
islating bodies of either England or America, be 
most indecorously laughed at. The change which 
has taken place in public speaking during the last 
century can not be better seen than by comparing 
the House of Commons when Pitt ruled it with the 
House of Commons of to-day. Then Fox with no 
knowledge of political economy led the opposition. 
Then Burke with his brilliant imagination and gor- 
geous rhetoric and saintly morality fired over the 
heads of hearers, speaking only to posterity. Then 
Sheridan with no real knowledge of political princi- 
ples held the House in the closest attention by his 
wit and his eloquence. Then every orator who as- 
pired to influence constructed his speech on rhetor- 
ical principles and adorned it with quotations from 
the Greek and Latin classics. Then eloquence was 
the one passport to high office in the state. But 
now, I quote the words of another, "government 
takes its place among the sciences, and mere in- 
tellectual cleverness unallied with experience, in- 
formation, and character, has little weight or in- 
fluence. The leaders of Conservatism and Liberal- 
ism are no longer men who have the art of manu- 
facturing polished and epigrammatic phrases, but 
those who are skilled in the arts of parliamentary 



80 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

fence and management, and who have made state- 
craft the study of their lives. These men, though 
they hem and haw and stammer and can hardly put 
their sentences together in logical order, take their 
seats on the Treasury Bench as Secretaries of State; 
while the mere orators who have no special experi- 
ence or information sit on the back benches or be- 
low the gangway. The leading statesmen indulge 
in no such bursts of oratory as shook the House 
in the latter half of the eighteenth century. They 
state their views plainly, tersely, with little pre- 
ambling and little embellishment, and, having de- 
livered themselves of what they had to say, they 
conclude as abruptly as they began. And Mr. Glad- 
stone is the only orator who persists in trying to 
adorn his speeches with gems from the ancient clas- 
sics." 

If important questions and intense excitement 
could evoke the stormy and passionate eloquence of 
former times, surely these questions and this ex- 
citement have not been wanting during the last few 
years when Parliament has been considering the 
Irish question. The Americans have but a faint con- 
ception of the very deep feeling excited in England 
by the discussion. What has become of the old style 
eloquence? I remember well the scene when Mr. 
Forster made his great speech — for great speech it 
was — January 24th, 1881, in support of the Protec- 
tion Bill. Both Conservatives and Liberals cheered 
him as he rose, marking their sense that this was 
no party question, but a question touching the in- 
tegrity of the Empire, a question of the Queen's 
authority where it is now challenged or overthrown, 
a question of the protection of the Queen's subjects 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 81 

in a part of her domain where loyalty and obedience 
to law have become dangerous. "There have not 
been many occasions," says the intelligent corre- 
spondent of the Tribune, "which made a greater de- 
mand on the minister's powers. He had to propose 
a measure in itself unwelcome to everybody, which 
had been resisted by a powerful section of his own 
party; which was undoubtedly repugnant to his own 
feelings; which was sure to be met with screams of 
angry defiance from parts of the representatives of 
the country which it affected. He had to justify its 
introduction by such a description of the state of 
Ireland as should prove any less stringent measure 
to be insufficient for the maintenance, or rather for 
the restoration, of order. He had to explain why 
he had failed to govern Ireland with the ordinary 
weapons of the law, and to show that he had made 
the best use of these weapons, and that they had 
proved inadequate. A statement of this kind might 
tax the power of a great orator, and Mr. Forster is 
not a great orator. He is, however, a sagacious, sin- 
cere, experienced statesman, capable of saying plain 
things in a plain, clear way; and his was perhaps a 
more useful and convincing statement than if it 
had been adorned with flowers of rhetoric and suf- 
fused with the persuasive passion of eloquence." The 
case was one calling simply for facts which would 
justify the Government. Without those facts the 
Government could not defend itself either with or 
without passionate eloquence. Those facts clearly 
presented constituted the most eloquent of all ap- 
peals to the British heart. And so the speech — a 
plain speech — was in a threefold degree successful. 
It actually added to the fame of the speaker. It 



82 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

was a complete vindication of the speaker from all 
the criticism and abuse which he had borne in dig- 
nified silence during the past few months. But 
most of all, it accomplished the object for which he 
spoke, so that, as an English writer of authority of 
that day remarks, "when Mr. Forster sat down, it 
is not too much to say that there were not twenty 
members of the House, outside the ranks of the 
Home Rulers, who were not convinced that in the 
presence of such a state of things, it was impossible 
to think of refusing the powers demanded by the Gov- 
ernment." What more than this could Pitt, or Fox, 
or Burke have accomplished? What better illustra- 
tion than this do we need, that legislation is no 
longer a matter of passion but that government 
now takes its place among the sciences? 

The public speaking of our country is to-day 
much more distinctly marked by argument than 
by striking eloquence. The supremacy of reason 
over passion is thereby plainly recognized. The dark 
days of '60 and '61 and the more awful months 
from '61 to '65 called forth no more real eloquence 
than did the discussion of slavery and the compro- 
mise measures ten years before. And the latter pe- 
riod of 1850 could show nothing to compare with the 
great debates of nearly twenty years earlier date. 
And few of the speeches of 1830 equal in earnest- 
ness and intensity of passion the speeches of Otis, 
Henry, and others of Revolutionary fame. 

Passion wears out after a while in nations as 
in men. From the first experiment of a new re- 
public, with its system of government to be settled 
and tried, on through all the varying mysteries of 
debt, and taxes, and finance, protection and free 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 83 

trade, slavery and freedom, war and peace, rebel- 
lion, emancipation, the assassination of the president, 
and the reconstruction of conquered states, it seems 
as if we had passed through every experience which 
could naturally agitate a nation like ours. It is 
not likely that there will be any event in the near 
future which will call forth an Uncle Tom's Cabin 
for the nation to weep over. It is not likely, God 
grant that it may never be likely, that this nation 
will ever witness such scenes of terror and blood as 
France has witnessed. The thoughtful student, the 
true patriot, and the honest Christian will certainly 
do all in their power to avert the possibility of 
anarchy, by making justice and judgment the habi- 
tation of our government, and causing mercy and 
truth to go before us as a people. Men will discuss 
questions as they rise into prominence, bringing what 
light they can from the experience of the past and 
seeking wisdom for the future from that past. But 
it is almost as certain as anything in the future 
can be, that the profound emotion under which men 
have spoken when the fate of the country and the 
fate of humanity seemed to hang upon their words, 
will be less and less apparent in our national Con- 
gress and less and less to be expected in political 
discussions. The change has come. Men ask 
for instruction, light, knowledge — not for rhetoric 
and passion. They must be fed on facts, substance — 
not on words and tropes. 

But let the world change as it may, one thing 
will remain unchanged. We must all die — and af- 
ter death the judgment — or what? What shall be 
man's character and so what his relations to God, 
here and hereafter — this is a theme which will be 



84 ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 

new as long as men continue to die, new to each 
man, new to each generation of men. Whether we 
will or not, it forces itself upon our attention. The 
death of every great man, who dies with his coun- 
try's honors heaped high upon him, calls our attention 
to this question. Every scholar cultured to the ut- 
most with study and learning, who goes from us, 
makes us ask, " Where is he?" and "What has be- 
come of his keen intellect, his grand attainments.'' 
Your fathers — where are they? The question takes 
many of us in imagination into the unseen world 
and forces us to think of the old problem of immor- 
tality. Now, miserable indeed is the clergyman who 
must speak on eternal themes without realizing their 
importance; but to him who really feels the power 
of an endless life, no other theme can be so full 
of eloquence. It is in the pulpit, therefore, that we 
have a right to expect eloquence to linger longest, 
and to cease only when men no longer have need 
of God. And what the pulpit in the exercise of its 
high prerogative, its divine mission especially needs, 
is a larger infusion into sacred eloquence, of the 
freedom, boldness, and strength which distinguish 
our secular oratory. 

As then the lawyer, as a good citizen, may well 
find his place in the church on Sunday, that the 
clergyman may make him acquainted with the ob- 
ligations of the higher law, so the clergyman might 
often, with great profit to himself and his people, 
study in the court room the methods by which the 
successful lawyer convinces and persuades. The com- 
mon sense, the definiteness of purpose, the clear- 
ness of statement, the logical connection of thought, 
the discriminating judgment, and the moral earnest- 



ELOQUENCE AND THE LAW 85 

ness there employed to gain the ascendancy in things 
seen and temporal, he might with great advantage 
take with him to his pulpit, and there use them to 
impress upon his hearers the incomparably greater 
importance of the things that are unseen and eternal. 



THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A CONSERVA- 
TIVE FORCE IN OUR REPUBLIC* 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Law School: 

There is a great difference between the ideal and 
the actual in every profession. Very few men in 
any profession realize their own ideals. But not 
the less, we must all have ideals and must seek to 
reach them, if we would ever attain to anything 
better than the very commonplace work which oc- 
cupies the attention of most men in all professions. 
And there are a few men, who, if they do not 
reach their own ideals, at least make themselves ex- 
amples of the very highest success and power. There 
are such men in the ministry. Who can fail to 
think of the great man who for fifty years filled 
the pulpit of this church — Leonard Bacon? There 
are such men in the law; and while, perhaps, our 
minds, in searching for them, would not naturally 
turn at once to the bar of this city, I can not 
but recall my early impressions as a student in the 
college, and later in this Law School, and the ad- 
miration which I felt for Baldwin, Kimberly, Inger- 
soll, Blackman, Dutton, and others who have passed 
away, as well as for several eminent lawyers who 
still live to adorn the profession of their choice. 

^Delivered before the graduating class at the sixty-eighth anni- 
versary of Yale Law School, June 28th, 1892. 
-7 



88 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

I have never ceased to regard the law as "one 
of the first and noblest of human sciences — a sci- 
ence," if I may slightly change the expression of 
Burke, "which does more to quicken and invigorate 
the understanding" than any other. I believe that 
the study of law is admirably fitted to equip a man 
intellectually even for the ministry of the Gospel, a 
profession in popular conception as far as possible 
removed from the law; and that no training will 
better fit a speaker for his work than the careful 
study of the methods by which the successful advo- 
cate carries conviction to the minds of a court and 
jury. Moreover, no study is more valuable than the 
law to the man who is to engage in business under 
the complicated system of modern life; while to the 
future legislator and statesman it is absolutely in- 
dispensable. I wish, therefore, that it were com- 
mon for young men to pursue the systematic study 
of law, even though they do not intend to practice 
law as a profession. With high hopes for the edu- 
cational development of the young state in which I 
live, I have been greatly cheered by the presence 
in our Law School, of many young men who do not 
intend to follow the law as a profession, but are 
seeking in its study that culture and knowledge 
which will be of service to them in almost any pos- 
sible pursuit in which they may engage. It is not, 
however, the study of law, to which I invite your 
attention to-day. 

I propose to speak of the legal profession as a 
conservative force in our republic. I shall try to 
show that it is such a force, shall point out some 
ways in which it may be more useful than at present, 
and finally shall call attention to some facts which 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 89 

emphasize the special need of such a force at the 
present time. 

Our system of government is unquestionably ex- 
cellent. Under it we have liberty without license 
and order without oppression. It may not be per- 
fect; but, perfect or imperfect, it is so good that we 
wish to preserve it. The division of power between 
the nation and the states, and between the states and 
the smaller political units that compose the states; 
the division of the government into executive, legis- 
lative, and judicial branches ; the freedom and equali- 
ty of the people practically guarantied by the Con- 
stitution; these are all so excellent that we would 
not willingly change them. The experience of more 
than a century has proved the wisdom of the fathers 
who established this government. The accumulated 
blessings of a century of free government are ours. 
Whatever advances we may now make must be made 
in a conservative spirit that shall preserve what has 
already been secured. A true conservative spirit is 
not opposed to reform when needed ; but it recognizes 
the fact that mere change is not reform — only change 
for the better is reform — and that this should be 
sought within existing institutions and not by de- 
stroying them. It proves all things; but it holds 
fast that which is good. 

No profession in our country is, or by reason of 
its nature ought to be, more conservative than the 
law. Every lawyer is a sworn minister of justice; 
and "justice," as Webster said, "is the great interest 
of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds 
civilized beings and civilized nations together. 
Wherever her temple stands and as long as it is 
honored, there is a foundation for social security, gen- 



90 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

eral happiness, and the improvement and progress 
of our race." The legal profession is devoted to the 
administration of justice under existing laws. It 
does not ask what the law ought to be. It merely 
asks what the law is and what is right under the 
law as it is. Rarely does it happen to a lawyer, as 
it did to Erskine in his arguments on the Rights of 
British Juries and in defence of Stockdale, to an- 
ticipate legislation by presenting to the court a jus- 
tice higher than the law; and few lawyers, if they 
attempted to do so, would expect or deserve the 
success which attended Erskine' s bold experiment. 
Courts can decide what is law, but they can not make 
laws. Where, therefore, the laws are good, the con- 
servatism of the bar as represented in the courts, is 
invaluable. No real interest can be assailed that the 
law will not protect if it be appealed to. No new 
law can be made which violates the fundamental 
principles of government, that the courts will not at 
once pronounce unconstitutional. Passion may clam- 
or, as it often does, for ex post facto laws, for laws 
which involve a violation of the obligation of con- 
tracts, or for laws which impair freedom of thought 
or speech or religion; but the courts throw all such 
laws out as fast as an abnormal legislature can pass 
them. And the higher we ascend in our appeal to 
the courts, the more stable, independent, and con- 
servative do the courts become, so that the man who 
really wants nothing but what is just, finds the 
courts a refuge from even unfriendly legislation. 

The student of law learns at the very beginning 
of his studies that law is the highest wisdom of or- 
ganized society, expressed as a rule of conduct, com- 
manding what is right and prohibiting what is 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 91 

wrong. It is grounded on certain first principles 
existing in the nature and fitness of things. These 
principles have been derived from reason and ex- 
perience, from the customs of our ancestors, from the 
civil law, and from the golden rule of Christian 
morality. "On this basis, our courts have erected, 
the noble fabric of jurisprudence ; they have adjusted 
the various parts with the nicest symmetry; and a 
deviation from any fundamental principle deranges 
the whole superstructure." Under a system thus 
perfected, laws may change but law does not change. 
Uniformity of practice, the faithful following of prec- 
edent, a regard for the "whole system," these, no 
matter how much individual laws may change, in- 
sure that "permanent, uniform rule in the adminis- 
tration of justice which is the ultimate object of gov- 
ernment." The symmetry, perfection, and existence 
of the whole legal structure depend upon the con- 
servation of existing institutions. The ideal court 
has but one standard for every case it tries — that 
is justice as expressed in the law. It is bound to 
a uniformity of interpretation and is controlled in 
its principles of interpretation by its obligation to 
unnumbered precedents from the beginning of our 
national life and even from the establishment of 
justice. It deals, therefore, with its suitors as if 
they were unknown — mere abstract representations 
of principles. Its decisions come like the answer to 
an algebraic problem without partiality, even as the 
unknown quantities in the problem are subjected to 
the operation of Undeviating mathematical principles 
in order to determine their value. If there is any 
departure from this absolute impartiality and im- 
personality in the administration of justice, it is no 



92 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

fault of the system, no fault of the law, but the 
fault of the men who represent and administer jus- 
tice, either because they are unworthy to preside in 
the temple of justice, or, being worthy, they are yet 
incapable of becoming mere intellectual and judicial 
machines, but are men still in spite of being judges. 
So far as the legal system is concerned, it contem- 
plates and intends such an administration of justice 
as will inspire all men with confidence in its fairness 
and impartiality, and will thus make all men con- 
tent with things as they are, — a matter of the gravest 
importance in the present age. 

A legislature is composed of men who are not ex- 
pected to be dispassionate and impartial, of men who 
have been elected because they represent fixed opin- 
ions and are committed to a certain policy. Bills 
for public acts in harmony with the principles of the 
majority are passed under the excitement of fiery 
partisan declamation or with the stolid discipline 
of a silent but resistless majority. No one expects 
argument to have much influence — the more shame 
to us. The people settled everything at the polls 
when they elected the legislature. The legislators 
have been sent to the Capital to correct abuses, or 
to restore the golden age, and they must do it. Most 
of them have no idea how it is to be done, but 
there are usually two or three members who know 
all about it. The rest vote for everything which 
seems in good faith intended to bring about the de- 
sired result. They finally go home with grave doubts 
as to the coming of the golden age, but, as they 
have faithfully voted for everything in sight that the 
leaders of a golden age party could propose, thej 
doubtless are able to give a satisfactory explanation 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 93 

of their want of success to the disappointed constit- 
uents who expected their representative to bring 
the golden age home with him. Here, then, we have 
legislation by men who simply represent the passion 
and prejudice of a popular election. Fairness and 
justice under such conditions are impossible except 
as the passion and prejudice of the majority may 
happen to be just. Legislatures thus cease to be 
councils of wise men seriously deliberating for the 
welfare of the state, and become almost as powerless, 
so far as original thought and independent action are 
concerned, as presidential electors. Hence, govern- 
ment by the people comes to be government by party, 
and so largely government by caucus, and finally 
government by unreason. 

But in a court of justice we have a very different 
spectacle. Here, at least, is a place where facts and 
arguments have some influence on decisions, and 
where mere passionate declamation and appeals to 
prejudice can not govern. The most sedulous care 
has been taken to secure both judge and jury who are 
entirely free from any prejudice respecting the mat- 
ter in issue. Indeed so careful are we in this par- 
ticular that we exclude from the jury every man who 
is suspected of knowing anything about the matter 
in issue, and in some states this is carried so far 
as to exclude from the jury every man who knows 
anything. Under such conditions decisions may be 
wrong; but they are not often intentionally wrong. 
Nothing else is so conservative of our institutions 
as justice; and in our courts we have for the most 
part as perfect examples of justice as can be seen 
till men cease to be fallible in judgment. Again, the 
legal profession is a conservative force on account of 



94 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

its power. It has received, directly and indirectly, 
great power in trust for the conservation of our in- 
stitutions. The responsibility incident to this trust 
makes the legal profession careful and conservative; 
while the power committed to it enables it to con- 
serve our institutions as no other body of men can 
without force and violence. If we as a people are 
to be divided into distinct classes according to our 
occupations, and each class is to look upon the others, 
not as fellow citizens having a common interest in 
the welfare of the country, but as enemies seeking 
to get all they can and rob others of all they can, 
the people of the country might well look at the 
legal profession with jealousy and with a determina- 
tion to strip it of some of its power; and if the 
lawyers of the country were not in truth ministers 
of justice, faithful to their clients of whatever oc- 
cupation, just in their decisions as judges and wise 
as legislators; if they were seeking to aggrandize 
their own profession at the expense of other profes- 
sions and interests, it would be easy to justify ap- 
prehensions on the part of men of other occupa- 
tions, and a desire, even now sometimes expressed, to 
restrict the power of the bar; for surely nowhere 
else has the bar as a profession been given such 
power as in this country, and no other profession has 
been given such power here. First of all, the Su- 
preme Court, with all its far-reaching power, is com- 
posed wholly of lawyers; and it is safe to say, con- 
sidering the number of lawyers who have filled the 
presidential chair, that a majority of the justices of 
the Supreme Court have been appointed to that po- 
sition by lawyers. Our Constitution was framed by 
lawyers; its adoption was secured by lawyers; its 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 95 

character and meaning have been established by law- 
yers; and the government of the country is con- 
ducted to-day, under that Constitution, by lawyers. 
The president of the country is a lawyer, and the 
next president doubtless will be a lawyer. The legis- 
lative branch of the government is as effectually in 
the hands of lawyers as are the other two. Sixty-two 
members of the Senate are lawyers and only twenty- 
six are engaged in other professions or occupations. 
All but five of the states have at least one lawyer 
in the Senate, one of these five being Vermont, which, 
from time immemorial till now, has been represent- 
ed by able lawyers ; and twenty-two states are repre- 
sented in the Senate by lawyers exclusively. In the 
House of Representatives, a House elected under 
most abnormal conditions, when the convulsion of 
nature manifested in the earthquake felt all through 
the country, might have been expected to bring to the 
surface the sons of the soil if anything could, there are 
yet one hundred and ninety-eight lawyers, and only 
one hundred and thirty-four of other occupations, of 
whom only fifty are farmers or planters. There are 
only nine states of whose delegation in the lower 
House at least half are not lawyers. The great agri- 
cultural states are as fully represented by lawyers 
as most of the others ; Indiana, for example, has 
one physician and twelve lawyers, and Kentucky, 
one farmer and ten lawyers. This is a truly alarm- 
ing situation if the lawyers are banded together for 
the benefit of their profession or of their wealthy cli- 
ents at the expense of the rest of the country; but a 
most happy condition indeed, if, as I think is the fact, 
the lawyers are as patriotic as any other class of citi- 
zens and differ from them in no respect except in the 



96 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

possession of greater knowledge of our laws and insti- 
tutions. They are no close corporation. The way is 
open to every one who has the requisite qualifications, 
to become a member of this most honorable and most 
influential guild, and so to become eligible to the 
highest seats of power that are assigned only to mem- 
bers of this profession. The greatest constitutional 
lawyer the country has seen was the son of a New 
Hampshire farmer. 

The man exists before the lawyer. The lawyer 
is simply the man educated for special work. What- 
ever of honor or patriotism the man had, the law- 
yer will have. Any view of the profession, therefore, 
as a band of selfish and unscrupulous foes to the 
rest of society, of whatever grade, is supremely fool- 
ish. The services rendered to this country by the 
legal profession have been so immense that nothing 
but the prejudice of ignorance can account for ap- 
prehensions sometimes expressed as to the dangerous 
influence of the profession. When the nation mur- 
murs at the presence in the seats of the Senate 
Chamber of large numbers of men of great wealth, 
some of whom are more than suspected of having 
gained their seats by their money, the murmurs are 
not unreasonable. When men, smarting under busi- 
ness reverses and a load of debt incident to repeated 
failures of crops, complain that lawyers fill the 
judges' benches and will not permit measures for 
relief inconsistent with our established system of jus- 
tice, the complaints are at least natural, in view of 
the blinding power of self-interest. But when, as a 
remedy, men are sent to Congress on account of their 
deficient wardrobe, or judges are elected on account 
of their ignorance of law, the step from the sublime 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 97 

to the ridiculous is taken, and any further steps 
in the same direction will be steps from honor to 
shame, and from safety to peril. 

The Constitution of the United States contains 
no provisions which can protect us from all possible 
evils. Unwise legislation, though not expressly au- 
thorized, is nowhere forbidden; and it is not uncom- 
mon either in the national Congress or the state legis- 
latures. But the Constitution does insure to us the 
enjoyment of those great rights and privileges with 
whose existence injustice of any kind even by legis- 
lative act is incompatible. It is upon these great 
provisions of the Constitution, assuring perfect 
equality of all before the law, and not only equality 
but a royal inheritance of rights for all, that the 
people rest content. And so long as the administra- 
tion of justice in the courts is seen to be uniform 
and impartial, there will be no public discontent of 
any magnitude that will seek to destroy the Con- 
stitution or the courts which interpret it. The 
ground -swell of popular passion may lift and does 
lift legislatures that largely float on the surface of 
popular feeling; but it will not disturb the depths 
in which reposes our Constitution, resting on foun- 
dations of eternal justice which God himself has 
laid ; nor will it disturb, nor seek seriously to disturb,, 
those ministers of justice who, as judges, interpret 
the Constitution and impartially dispense its bless- 
ings to all. I repeat, laws may change, but law 
abides. Legislators will obey the behests of their 
masters who elect them. But our Constitution and 
our system of jurisprudence rest upon foundations 
somewhat less transitory than popular passion, and 
they have hitherto been interpreted in such a spirit 



98 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

as to command the respect and approval of all classes 
of our people. Popular unrest has not yet led to 
any serious assault upon these; nor will it lead to 
such assault so long as the administration of justice 
remains impartial. But is it impartial? If it be, 
by what singular accident does it happen that ques- 
tions which specially concern political parties are, 
when submitted to the courts, so generally decided 
according to the views of the party to which a ma- 
jority of the judges belong? That they have been so 
decided, can hardly, I think, be denied. The Elec- 
toral Commission, that composite body of statesmen 
and jurists that decided the presidential election in 
1876, was divided in opinion as to what was just, 
exactly as a commission would have been divided if 
made up from the conventions of the two political 
parties. Not a Senator, nor a Representative, nor a 
Supreme Court judge, whose opinion of the law was 
not affected by his party views. Curious, was it 
not, that such great men as composed that commis- 
sion, should be unable to judge of the facts and the 
law without party bias? Yet it is perfectly certain 
that they were unable to free themselves from this 
bias, otherwise the line of separation in opinion, 
wherever else it might have been drawn, would not 
have exactly coincided with the line of party. 

Judges are human, and their minds reach con- 
clusions by the same processes as other well-trained 
minds. Where the law is not clear and settled, de- 
cisions will undoubtedly be affected by other consider- 
ations. This is nothing new, nor is it alarming so 
far as it has yet gone. Chief Justice Mansfield was 
undoubtedly one of the noblest men and one of the 
ablest judges that ever adorned the King's Bench in 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 99 

England; yet it is said of him that he was "emi- 
nently sound and just in his decisions where his polit- 
ical convictions were not involved." Our own Chief 
Justice Marshall, one of the great judges not only of 
our country, but of the world, was a Federalist and 
he gave Federalist decisions. A writer of authority 
has said that "in many of the cases before him, he 
could have given opposite decisions, had he been so 
minded, and as matter of pure law these opposite de- 
cisions would have been just as good as those which 
he did give. Ploughing in fresh ground, he could run 
his furrows in what direction he thought best, and 
could make them look straight and workmanlike. He 
had no rocks in the shape of authorities, no confus- 
ing undulations in collections of adjudications tend- 
ing in one or another direction. He was making 
law; he had only to be logical and consistent in the 
manufacture. He made Federalist law in nine cases 
out of ten, and made it in strong, shapely fashion." 
But how is this consistent with impartiality? I will 
let Marshall's biographer answer. "It is one thing 
to be impartial and another to be colorless in mind. 
Judge Marshall was impartial and strongly possessed 
of the judicial instinct or faculty. But he was by 
no means colorless. He could no more eliminate 
from his mind an interest in public affairs and opin- 
ions as to the preferable forms of government and 
methods of administration, than he could cut out and 
cast away his mind itself. Believing that the Con- 
stitution intended to create and did create a national 
government, and, having decided notions as to what 
such a government must be able to do, he was subject 
to a powerful though insensible influence to find 
the existence of the required abilities in the govern- 



100 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

ment. * * * The meaning which the words had for 
him inevitably seemed their natural and proper mean- 
ing. Thus in all cases of doubt the decision must re- 
flect the complexion of his mind." 

This was all very well for Judge Marshall in his 
peculiar relations to a new government ; but nothing- 
could be more dangerous at the present time than 
for judges to interpret law according to their notions 
of political expediency. At the same time no judge 
is called on to throw away his common sense and 
do violence to his own mind in order to prove his 
political or judicial impartiality. It is well for the 
country that Judge Marshall was sufficiently inde- 
pendent to render the decisions he did; and it is one 
of the pleasant incidents in the clash of parties 
and the varying opinions respecting public men, that 
one of the highest eulogies ever pronounced on Chief 
Justice Marshall, was delivered here, on an occasion 
like this, by a Democratic vice-president of the 
United States. 

The immediate successor of Judge Marshall, 
Chief Justice Taney, has had great odium cast upon 
him by reason of the Dred Scott decision, and cer- 
tainly no decision in the history of our country more 
strikingly illustrates the power of political feeling 
over the judiciary. No doubt a multitude of people 
believe that Taney was an inferior lawyer, who, ow- 
ing his appointment to his political services, debased 
his office by his subjection to party. In this, great 
injustice has been done both to his ability and his 
character. It gave me great pleasure a few years 
ago to receive from the lips of Justice Miller of the 
Supreme Court, a man of conspicuous ability and 
candor, and an earnest Republican, associated with 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 101 

Taney on the bench, the strongest assurances of the 
eminent legal and judicial ability of Chief Justice 
Taney. He meant to be impartial, but like Marshall, 
his mind was not colorless ; nor could he as judge look 
at things in exactly the opposite way from that in 
which he was accustomed to look at them as a citizen. 
It is worth while to speak of this because the reputa- 
tion of our judges ought to be sacred, even more 
sacred than that of presidents, because so much more 
depends on the popular impression respecting their 
integrity. If, as a recent writer on the constitution- 
al history of our country has affirmed, there was a 
systematic attempt made by the friends of slavery to 
secure the control of the Supreme Court in order to 
obtain decisions like that of the Dred Scott case, all 
that we need say of it to-day, in the light of subse- 
quent events, is 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault; 
And grievously hath Caesar answered it. 

There have been decisions of the Supreme Court 
since then that were manifestly the result of polit- 
ical convictions, and in which the lines of party were 
distinctly drawn among the judges. But fortunately 
these cases have not been very numerous, they have 
concerned grave questions of government and not 
the possession of power by parties; and, so far as 
I remember, they have not in any instance been of 
a character to shake the confidence of the people in 
the integrity and ability of the Court. That Court 
is, what Story declared it to be, "the greatest court 
in the world," — greatest by reason of its high pre- 
rogatives; but greater yet in the noble simplicity, 
purity, and ability with which it has exercised its 



102 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

transcendent powers and discharged its most impor- 
tant duties — a conrt composed of citizens of the re- 
public, who have gained the high position which they 
hold only by the thoroughness of their study of the 
law and their conspicuous ability and virtues — a 
court authorized to adjudicate and settle controver- 
sies between states, and between the nation and the 
states — a court, whose unsullied character has so com- 
manded the confidence and admiration of the world 
as to call forth during the present year the most re- 
markable tribute that any court ever received, a prop- 
osition from a foreign nation whose passions were ex- 
cited, whose anger was kindled, a nation almost on 
the verge of war with us, to submit the whole matter 
in controversy to the Supreme Court of the United 
States and to be bound entirely by its decision. We 
can find no other force in our country so conservative 
of our liberties and rights as this court in which 
prejudice and partisan zeal have so rarely exerted a 
controlling influence. 

It is not to be expected nor desired of even an 
ideal judiciary that its decisions shall always be ad- 
verse to the party to which a majority of the court 
belongs. That party is quite as likely to be right 
as the other; and when it is right the decision should 
be in its favor. But it is desirable that in all cases 
the judges should appear to have rendered their de- 
cisions because such decisions are right and for no 
other reason; and our confidence in the impartiality 
of our courts is not a little strengthened if they show 
a willingness to render decisions that are not in ac- 
cord with their political associations. It is, there- 
fore, specially pleasant to note the fact that several 
decisions of the state courts during the past year, in 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 103 

cases exciting much party feeling, have been given 
in opposition to the views of the party to which 
the majority of the court belonged. The Wisconsin 
Gerrymander case is a notable example. Instances 
of the same kind have appeared in other states, where, 
as in New York and Connecticut, the courts have 
been asked to exercise unusual powers and have given 
decisions that show a reasonable desire on the part 
of the judges to be impartial and judicial rather than 
partisan. Our courts must be thus impartial, must 
rise above party feeling, must decide in favor of what 
is right, let who will be disappointed, or the strong- 
est bulwark of our system of government will begin 
to crumble. The more confidence we can feel that 
the Bench, by a mysterious alchemy of its own, neu- 
tralizes the partisan feeling of its occupant, the bet- 
ter it will be for the country. 

But if judges are not free from party feel- 
ing and are liable to be influenced by it, what can we 
do to provide a remedy? Not very much, certainly. 
But this, at least, can be done and should be done. 
The tenure of office of judges should be made de- 
pendent as little as possible on party support. The 
bar should be made a unit in presenting the best men 
as candidates and in demanding of all political 
parties such reciprocity as will leave no judge to feel 
that his election has been secured by one party and 
his office can be retained only by fidelity to that party. 
Once elected, every judge should feel that his con- 
tinuance in office depends on his ability and faith- 
fulness in discharging his duties and that nothing 
will so surely bring his official life to an early end 
as x>artisanship. It is only thus that we can hope to 
have an honest and impartial judiciary — a judiciary 



104 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

not indifferent to political principles and yet as just 
as learning and integrity can be. 

The state of Minnesota has been under the con- 
trol of one political party ever since its first governor 
retired from office more than thirty years ago. 
Yet a leading journal of the minority party in the 
state recently asserted that "Minnesota has to-day al- 
most an ideal non-partisan judiciary. There are on 
the State Supreme Bench five judges, four of whom 
are Republicans and one a Democrat. On the Dis- 
trict Bench of the state there are twenty-nine judges, 
of whom eighteen are Republicans and eleven Dem- 
ocrats, and at times, notwithstanding the large Re- 
publican majority in the state, the Democrats have 
actually had more judges than the Republicans." 
Such a condition of things may show "bad politics," 
as the phrase now is, on the part of the Republican 
majority, but it shows good sense and true patriot- 
ism. For if our courts ever become thoroughly par- 
tisan like our legislatures, justice will be at an end; 
the Rob Roy of politics will govern us according to 
his own law 

That they shall take who have the power 
And they shall keep who can 

not indeed cattle, but that which is immeasurably 
more valuable than the cattle upon a thousand hills, 
the political rights of a whole people. 

The duty which the legal profession owes to the 
country is not fully discharged by its services in 
the courts. Laws are often imperfect. Those who 
best know the laws, best know what is needed to 
make them better. While their duty as lawyers is 
to secure justice under the laws as they are, their 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 105 

duty as citizens is no less imperative to enlighten 
their fellow citizens respecting all possible improve- 
ments in the laws, and especially in reference to 
those laws under which a considerable number of the 
people of the country are seen to be restless and 
dissatisfied. Great movements of the people outside 
of old party lines for the redress of grievances 
through political reform always mean that there is 
trouble somewhere which needs to be investigated. 
Guizot is right when he says that "the essence of 
government by no means resides in compulsion, in the 
exercise of brute force; it consists more especially of 
a system of means and powers conceived for the 
purpose of discovering on all occasions what is best 
to be done; for the purpose of discovering the truth 
which of right ought to govern society; for the pur- 
pose of persuading all men to acknowledge this truth, 
to adopt and respect it willingly and freely." Under 
our government the people must acknowledge this 
truth which of right ought to govern, or government 
will be at an end. We depend entirely on the will- 
ingness of the people to execute the laws; and "gov- 
ernment possesses no power adequate to the con- 
trol of the physical power of the people." "Obedience 
to the laws is the vital condition of the social com- 
pact." However mistaken, therefore, great move- 
ments among the people may be, they deserve at 
least a careful study by all who love their country 
and would serve her. If there are evils which legis- 
lation can remedy, it should remedy them; and no 
class of people can do so much to bring this about 
as the members of the legal profession. As an emi- 
nent living lawyer has said, "Whenever the laws 
themselves are imperfect or unjust, I insist upon the 



106 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

duty of those who know them best and know best how 
to improve them, to make this knowledge available 
for the public good." 

There is in this country altogether too much un- 
fairness in legislation of a party character; and 
against this the legal profession ought to set its face 
as a flint, not merely against what is technically un- 
constitutional, but against what is unfair and wrong, 
and alien to that justice in whose temple they serve. 
No legislation of this class is more dangerous than 
that which seeks to give a party undue power by an 
unfair division of states into congressional and legis- 
lative districts, of which we already have an alarming 
number of examples. It will not do for respectable 
gentlemen to look on while these things are done and 
merely shrug their shoulders and smile, content that 
the rascality shall go on, provided it works for the 
advantage of their party, and they themselves are 
recognized as merely looking on; it will not do for 
these respectable gentlemen to cry out like Macbeth, 
when the full enormity of the deed appears, "Thou 
canst not say I did it." You can not innocently 
stand by and see a murder committed in cold blood, 
and neither try to prevent nor to punish it. The 
Gerrymander is the deadliest assassin's stab aimed at 
the heart of justice that has ever been devised. It is 
the most gigantic of all grand larcenies, the larceny 
of a people's rights. No matter where it exists or 
when or how it began, no matter whether it be ven- 
erable with antiquity and free from original taint of 
injustice, as in Connecticut, or whether it be fresh 
in its infamy, as in states where it has just appeared, 
let it by all means be swept out of existence every- 
where and be buried in an eternal grave. This nation 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 107 

can live and prosper only by justice; and this justice 
forbids the accidental majority to-day in any state to 
gag and bind for all time the accidental minority. 
We imperil the good of all when we favor or con- 
nive at such deadly wrongs as perhaps only revolu- 
tions can repair or avenge. No man can foretell the 
future, but in the light of what we have already 
passed through in some parts of our country, and, 
with the rapid change in population by immigration 
and emigration, what we are liable to encounter in 
any part of our country, political cyclones that sweep 
everything before them; storm clouds, filled with the 
strangest combination of elements, before which no 
party can stand; in view of this, we can see the im- 
perative necessity of guarding in every way possible 
the justice of our country. If the elements of dis- 
content ever get control, you may be sure that "the 
villainy you teach them they will execute, and it shall 
go hard, but," like Shylock, "they will better the in- 
struction." 

It would be a grave mistake, however, to suppose 
that any considerable number of our people desire to 
subvert our institutions. Organized labor may, un- 
der the pressure of distress, in its groping for relief, 
seize upon measures that seem to promise well, but 
that in reality are incompatible with the fundamental 
principles of justice and of economic wisdom as well. 
But this is not because organized labor desires to 
destroy our institutions, but merely because it does 
not at the moment see what the entire results of the 
proposed measures would be. Organized labor wants 
just what every good citizen wants, that which is 
best for the country. The trouble is not less to find 
out what that is, than to get it. 



108 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

The power of the people under our system of gov- 
ernment to change our laws and our institutions 
without any violent revolution, is unquestionable. 
Even under the most unfavorable Gerrymander that 
could be devised, there is not a legislature in the 
country, of which the wage-earners could not elect an 
overwhelming majority if they chose, with all the 
executives in the country including the president of 
the United States, nor would the absolute control of 
the judiciary, national and state, be much longer 
delayed. How we are to be governed, what sort of 
laws we are to have, how these laws are to be inter- 
preted and executed, all depends ultimately on the 
wishes of the people — the toiling, restless masses, if 
you please, for these by their numbers are the people,, 
and nothing can prevent their gaining complete con- 
trol of every department of government, state and 
national alike, except divisions among themselves. 
These divisions exist to-day, and will continue to 
exist as long as the measures proposed to be carried 
by combination are not wiser and more reasonable 
than those that have heretofore been proposed. A 
perfect combination will never be possible unless it 
is made necessary by the failure of justice. The 
moment it becomes necessary, it will become possible. 
Such a contingency is not to be greatly dreaded, pro- 
vided the people who thus come into power have been 
educated to such an extent as we may reasonably ex- 
pect under our system of public education. To be 
governed by ignorance, passion, and prejudice, would 
be an unspeakable calamity; but to be governed by 
industry, intelligence, and patriotism, is no calamity 
at all. The great problem, then, that demands our 
constant attention, is the wise education of the peo- 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 109 

pie. The older states have always attended to this 
with more or less liberality ; and the new states, most 
or all of them, have magnificent school funds. No 
other agency does so much to assimilate and unify the 
different races that are fast filling up our country as 
the public schools. No other agency does so much 
to bring together and make acquainted with one an- 
other, the children of different races, parties, creeds, 
and so to Americanize them from the first. No other 
agency does so much to awaken a common spirit of 
enthusiasm for our free institutions and for our coun- 
try. But education does not make men content to be 
treated unjustly or to be trampled on or to be doomed 
to eternal inferiority, when something better is pos- 
sible. These educated masses know very well that, 
for their redemption from political wrongs, they have 
no need to resort to the bullet, because the ballot can 
gain for them everything which was ever gained by 
the bloodiest of revolutions. An intelligent people, 
no matter of what class or of what occupation, will 
desire such political, action as will be best for them- 
selves, and in the end it will be found that what is 
best for the majority is best for all. The men who are 
intelligent, and the men who own property or hope 
to own property, are, and are likely to continue to 
be for a long time to come, much more numerous 
than the illiterate and the men who neither own nor 
hope to own property. They are not likely to consent 
to any constitutional change by which the right of 
private property shall be destroyed either by a direct 
assumption of all property by the state or by the 
more insidious process of single tax confiscation of 
the fruits of a man's industry and self-denial. Of 
course there are elements in some of our large cities 



110 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

not destitute of education, but so utterly bad that 
they are ready for any change, however bloody and 
destructive. But as yet, these anarchists constitute 
a very inconsiderable part of our population and are 
little to be feared except as the insane crank is to be 
feared, who, careless of his own life, may succeed in 
taking most valuable lives of others. So long as our 
country is not over-populated, so long as new land 
can be obtained almost for the asking, so long as a 
permanent home and a supporting income can be in- 
sured by honest industry, the great majority of our 
people will remain, as they are, law-abiding and law- 
respecting. But if the time should ever come, as I 
pray God it may not come, when the same conditions 
which make poverty in London so common and so 
pitiable, such conditions as have existed largely in 
Europe, and have made the common people spend 
lives of little comfort, and have caused multitudes 
of them to seek for something better in our own 
land, — if such conditions should ever come to exist 
here, our people, accustomed for generations to com- 
fort and plenty, would never endure these new con- 
ditions which the poor of Europe have endured for 
ages with only an occasional outbreak of frenzied 
despair and which the poor of Asia endure at the 
present time with the same senseless patience as 
that with which their ancestors have endured it for 
untold years in the past. 

Allow not nature more than nature needs, 
Man's life is cheap as beast's. 

A people who, like the toilers of our country, have 
known comfort, learning, and comparative luxury, 
can never be brought down to the beast's estate and 



CONSERVATIVE FORCE 111 

be made to put up with simply what "nature needs." 
Especially will our people rebel against such condi- 
tions, if these conditions are brought about by unjust 
legislation, by the want of proper legislation, by un- 
due privileges and powers granted to wealthy cor- 
porations, or by any operation by which the things 
necessary for the comfort of life are placed beyond the 
reach of common labor to secure, and by which the 
fortunate few fatten on the miseries of the many. 

While no such peril stares us in the face at the 
present moment, while the products of our land and 
of our mines and of our manufactories are abundant, 
while territories that thirty years ago were supposed 
to be almost worthless are now able to furnish bread 
for the world, while a single great crop like that of 
last year, when Providence literally "opened the win- 
dows of heaven and poured us out a blessing that 
there was not room enough to receive it," can enable 
thousands of farmers to pay for their farms and can 
transform complaining and despairing men into cheer- 
ful and optimistic citizens, it is for us, in this hour of 
prosperity and peace, to provide for the time sure to 
come, when nature will be less prodigal of her boun- 
ties, when business depressions will be followed by 
suffering, unrest, and complaints on the part of the 
people, and when the wild rage of helpless failures 
will call into existence a thousand perilous schemes 
for transforming our political and social system, for 
which ignorance and misery with united voices will 
clamor. No preparation for such a time can be better 
than absolute and impartial justice in the laws and in 
their administration. Every unwholesome law should 
be wiped off the statute book; and such measures of 
wise foresight should be adopted as will retard rather 



112 THE LEGAL PROFESSION AS A 

than accelerate the separation of our people into 
classes whose distinctions are poverty and wealth, and 
as will prevent the selfishness and greed of a few 
from becoming the occasion of the ruin of all. 

It is the merest commonplace to say that this 
country needs more patriotism and less partisanship, 
more brotherhood and less selfishness. Yet it is a com- 
monplace of mighty import, and one whose teaching is 
strangely overlooked. Nothing that we prize, from 
the Supreme Court down, is secure for the future un- 
less defended by justice. We must place the welfare 
of the nation, which is merely the welfare of the 
people, before the success of party, and must be willing 
to support every good measure, no matter with what 
party it originates, and to resist every bad measure 
though it originate with our own party, if we would 
make the future safe. 

We are destined, gentlemen, even in your day, to 
see more serious social complications than we have 
yet experienced; complications to meet which will re- 
quire a more advanced and nobler political science 
than we have learned; and I am watching to see 
whether, in the coming crisis, the patriotism of the 
country will again rise above party, as it did in '61, 
and will deal with these matters in such a way as 
will promote the prosperity and happiness of our en- 
tire people, and preserve to coming generations, the 
government established by our fathers as "a govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people." 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS* 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Re- 
gents, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I am very grateful for the words of welcome and 
of congratulation which have been spoken by my hon- 
ored predecessor, Dr. Folwell, and by the repre- 
sentatives of the regents, the faculty, the alumni, and 
the students of the University; and not less grateful 
for the hearty welcome given me by the state of Min- 
nesota, as represented on this occasion by the sov- 
ereign people in this most gracious assembly. I am 
the more grateful because this welcome has been 
given me after a year's administration of the Univer- 
sity, when I am no longer a stranger, but in some 
measure known to you all. It will always be pleasant 
to me to receive your approbation; it will be even 
more pleasant to deserve it. 

The first English colonies established on our shores 
were exceedingly slow in their development. The 
settlers had come from England in pursuit, not of 
wealth, but of freedom. They were poor, and were 
willing to be poor, if they might only secure that 
which they valued more than wealth — liberty of 
thought and of conscience. They were earnest men, 
who discriminated wisely between the externals of life 
and the real essentials of manhood. From the first, 

^Delivered at the University of Minnesota, June 11th, 1885, at the 
close of one year's service as president of the University. 



114 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

they placed a high value upon education; and before 
they were able to provide even comfortable dwellings 
for the shelter of their families, they established 
schools for the education of their children. 

Anxious for the higher education of young men 
who should be teachers and guides in church and state, 
they founded, at an early day, colleges as the neces- 
sary means for preserving a proper moral and intel- 
lectual life. As might be expected from the poverty 
of the people, the growth of these colleges was very 
slow. Yale College had an existence of eighteen years 
before its graduating class numbered ten men ; it was 
forty-seven years before its graduating class num- 
bered thirty ; and it was a full century and a quarter 
before a graduating class numbered one hundred. The 
number of students was not more insignificant than 
were the resources of the college, the teaching force, 
the studies, the apparatus, and the library. 

The phenomenal growth of the state of Minnesota 
during the last quarter of a century stands in marked 
contrast to the painfully slow growth of the early col- 
onies on the Atlantic coast. The increase in popula- 
tion and wealth has been in entire harmony with the 
changed condition of travel, industry, trade, and re- 
sources, which two centuries have produced. True to 
the enlightened instincts of the American people, Min- 
nesota has established a most beneficent system of 
public education as a first essential, and has crowned 
that system with a university for the free education of 
her sons and daughters. It might naturally be ex- 
pected that the growth of the University would keep 
pace with the growth of the state. So far as the com- 
plete organization and equipment of the necessary de- 
partments of the University are concerned, the expec- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 115 

tation is wholly reasonable, and has not been disap- 
pointed. I believe, also, that the time has now come 
when, in respect to the number of students who will 
enjoy the privileges of the University, the institution 
will show that it is keeping pace with the progress of 
the state. 

So far as I can now see, a state university differs 
from other colleges and universities in very few par- 
ticulars. Its objects and its methods are essentially 
the same as theirs. Only in the fact that it is the child 
of the state, and bound in law to honor its parent by 
obeying and serving the state, does it present any fea- 
ture specially different from other institutions. This 
may or may not be an important feature. If the state 
wants the same kind of education which is acceptable 
to the best part of the civilized world, the fact that the 
state controls the university is of no consequence. But 
if the state wants an education entirely different 
from that required by the rest of the civilized world, 
then the state's control of the university is of the 
greatest moment, for the state has a perfect right 
to receive the kind of education which it desires. 
The state which created the university reserves 
to itself the right of directing and controlling it. 
The state, through its legally appointed agents, 
may say what shall and what shall not be taught; 
how far the higher education shall be pursued; 
how far original investigation shall be made pos- 
sible; how ample or how insignificant shall be the 
library, the museum, the apparatus; who and what 
kind of men shall be the instructors. In short, the 
state may absolutely determine both the direction and 
the extent of the university's growth. A power so 
complete must be exercised by the state with very 



116 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

great discretion, if it would see in its university any 
evidence of that growth which is the result of real 
vitality within. There must be stability in the uni- 
versity, a settling to honest work by the combined 
forces of the institution, undistracted by perpetual 
apprehension of change and revolution. The seed 
sown in the morning must not be dug up at night to 
see whether it has sprouted. Nor must the impatient 
husbandmen assemble with their harvesters to gather 
in the crop before the proper time for the harvest has 
come. The order and the limitations of nature can 
not be disregarded even by a sovereign state. It is 
"first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn 
in the ear." 

On the other hand, the university, in loyalty to the 
state which created and supports it, must be so ad- 
ministered as to meet the wants of all and to violate 
the rights of none. It can not, therefore, be conduct- 
ed on any narrow theory of education. Its studies 
must begin at a point which the intelligent and in- 
dustrious scholars of the high school can reach, and 
they must be selected without prejudice or bias. Its 
instruction must be given with absolute fidelity to 
truth for truth's sake. Its range of studies must be 
as wide as the highest interests of the people require. 
And its aim must be to promote real scholarship and 
true learning, to cultivate intellects that shall be- 
come a power in the state, and shall augment the 
forces by which civilization is advanced and the hu- 
man race is made better, and at the same time by 
original investigations to make additions to the 
world's knowledge. 

I offer these suggestions, not because I think they 
are especially needed here, but because they express 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 117 

in a general way my feelings with reference to the 
manner in which the state should exercise its power 
of control ; and I am the more happy to express these 
views because, after a year's experience, I find that 
it is the manner in which the state does exercise its 
power of control. 

A university is not born in a day, either by private 
or public liberality. Time is needed for the assem- 
bling of all the elements, personal and material, that 
shall constitute the forming power of a university; 
and not less time, certainly, to inspire that confidence 
in the public mind in respect to the new institution 
which shall turn into its halls, and away from older 
institutions, the currents of popular support. With 
entire confidence in the wisdom and ability of those 
who laid the foundation of this institution and have 
had the administration of its affairs, I shall not per- 
mit myself to doubt for one moment that with the 
generous support of the state, the wise oversight 
of the Board of Kegents, and the cordial and earnest 
co-operation of an able faculty of instructors, this 
University can be made so good as to command the 
confidence of the public and to receive the support of 
the public. 

Many of the questions relating to the higher edu- 
cation, which have been vigorously discussed in Eu- 
rope and America for some years, do not need to 
be discussed here and now. Some of these questions 
have been practically settled, some of them are of 
little importance, and most of the others are rapidly 
finding their proper answer through experience and 
trial. Yet the very radical changes which have but 
recently been introduced into some of our oldest uni- 
versities, prove most clearly that no perfectly sat- 



318 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

isfactory system of education Las yet been devised. 
With the multiplication of sciences and the enlarge- 
ment of histories and literatures, there must inevi- 
tably arise a tendency to cut off those branches of 
study which can furnish no better reason for occupy- 
ing the place they do occupy than that they impart 
discipline of mind — a tendency, in other words, to 
seek discipline as far as possible in studies which 
not only make the mind capable of work, but also 
furnish the mind with material for work. And yet, 
I can not but think that this tendency, so far as it 
shall lead to a total surrender of those studies which 
experience has adjudged to be most salutary for pur- 
poses of discipline, ought to be resisted rather than 
encouraged. There is no principle in education more 
important than this, that attainments in even the 
most practical departments of knowledge must be 
based upon a broad, general culture. It is with edu- 
cation as with building. No matter what may be the 
style of architecture, the superstructure must stand 
upon a solid foundation or it is worthless. And in the 
laying of foundations there has always been but one 
principle to govern, and that is that the foundation 
shall be solid, capable of supporting the superstruc- 
ture. The foundation is not as ornamental as the 
rest of the structure, but it is not on that account 
the less important. The foundation is not what the 
architect spends his highest powers upon, but it is 
not on that account the less important. Your Gothic 
arches, your Corinthian or Doric columns will all 
tumble to the dust without the faithful, conscien- 
tious work of the mason as he lays the strong foun- 
dation upon which all is to stand. No combination 
of different kinds of architecture can be made which 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 119 

will render the solid foundation unnecessary. And, 
in my judgment, no arrangement of studies for the 
purpose of education can be made which will not re- 
quire the grand discipline of mathematics and lan- 
guages as a foundation. These studies are not merely 
disciplinary; they are literally the foundation upon 
which other studies rest. Upon our knowledge of 
mathematics depends our power to master the whole 
realm, not merely of physical, but even of econom- 
ical, science; and upon our knowledge of languages 
depends our accuracy in the use of our own tongue 
as well as our mastery of the past, as revealed in 
literature, language, and history. Those persons, 
therefore, who tell us that there is so much to learn 
that we must hurry, and must begin with the prac- 
tically useful, meaning thereby that we must omit 
the time-honored training of mathematics and lan- 
guages, either do not know what they are talking 
about, or they exhibit something worse than midsum- 
mer madness. 

The problem in education is, "How shall the young 
be best fitted to perform the highest work for their 
own age and the ages that are to come." It is, in 
form, the same problem which has exercised the in- 
genuity, the learning, the philanthropy, and the piety 
of all past time. But the answer to the problem 
can not always be the same, for there are elements 
in the problem which are constantly changing. The 
human mind, indeed, remains substantially the same. 
The child born in the nineteenth century is as help- 
less and ignorant as the child born in the sixteenth 
century. Thanks to the laws of heredity, and to the 
increased cultivation of a long line of ancestors, there 
are, doubtless, in his mental faculties greater possi- 

-9 



120 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

bilities of development than there were in the infant 
of the sixteenth century. But, practically, in both 
we start with a blank and write upon the tablets 
of the mind whatever we can write and the tablets 
can receive. But the other elements of the problem 
are not invariable. The amount and kind of knowl- 
edge imparted in an educational course must vary 
with the range and value of knowledge possessed by 
the human race. 

The world's progress must be recognized by the 
universities; and, as they can not impart all knowl- 
edge, they must impart the most important knowledge. 
No one supposes that the most important knowledge 
to-day is what would have been called so three centu- 
ries ago. Again, with the growth of knowledge the ages 
change amazingly in the character and scope of their 
pursuits, so that the learning which would have fully 
equipped a man for useful service to his age three 
centuries ago, would to-day leave him helpless and 
isolated from the activities and thought of the age. 
It is plain, then, that the so-called completed edu- 
cation of the nineteenth century must be very dif- 
ferent from the completed education of the sixteenth 
century. The new branches of knowledge by which 
man has been made more clearly the master of na- 
ture, by which human comfort and human happiness 
have been so greatly increased, and by which every 
department of human industry will be more and 
more affected, as new inventions or discoveries shall 
add to or destroy the value of invested capital, these 
must not be omitted from a curriculum which pur- 
ports to fit a student for the activities, the struggles, 
the conflicts of this terribly competitive age. It is 
these studies which depend for their importance upon 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 121 

those elements of the problem which are variable, 
namely, the absolute range of human knowledge and 
the requirements of the age; and it is these studies, 
therefore, which must be changed from time to time, 
as the state of knowledge and the requirements of 
the age shall demand. But there are other things 
to be secured by education which do not depend upon 
these changing elements of knowledge and ages. 
These are clear thinking, logical reasoning, the pow- 
er to observe and to infer, to discover truth and to 
enforce it. These things are needed in every age 
and in every condition of human knowledge. They 
belong to that element of the problem which is un- 
changing — the human mind itself. The laws of the 
human mind remain unchanged from age to age, 
unaffected by all the inventions and discoveries which 
revolutionize human industries. The method of cul- 
ture for the human mind may, therefore, properly 
remain the same from age to age, if any method 
has been discovered which confessedly is effective. 
Such a method has been discovered. It is through 
the discipline of the mathematics and the languages. 
The utility of this method has been demonstrated by 
experience. Its utility can not grow less so long 
as the human intellect remains what it is. This dis- 
ciplinary process, therefore, as effectively fitting the 
mind to deal with the higher problems of practical 
knowledge is not to be given up at the call of panic- 
stricken theorists, who, catching a glimpse of the 
immensity of God's universe, are in such a hurry 
to master all its secrets that they want to begin to 
calculate eclipses before they have studied arithmetic. 
But every one can see that the sooner the dis- 
ciplinary studies of education are completed, the bet- 



122 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

ter; provided their work has been well done. It is 
a poor plan to bnild without any foundation, but 
it is equally bad to be always laying foundation 
and never building. Against both of these errors 
the university ought to guard by insisting upon the 
laying of the proper foundations in the preparatory 
schools, and in the earlier years of the university 
course, and by insisting upon the building of some 
part of a symmetrical and useful superstructure in 
the later years of the university course. 

The only way to secure such a desirable condition 
of things is not merely to establish reasonable re- 
quirements for admission to the university, but to 
insist upon those requirements in all cases. The ex- 
cellence of a college is not measured by the number 
of its students. It is easy to secure large numbers 
of students if little preparation is required, and that 
little is dispensed with when not found. Better have 
a few students who are real scholars, than a thousand 
who ought to be in the common schools. The most 
hopeful sign for the university to-day is that the 
standard of scholarship in our high schools is steadily 
rising. As the perfection of the state's educational 
system increases, the requirements for admission to 
the university should be gradually raised, so that 
a higher grade of scholarship may be secured. To 
this process there is, of course, a necessary limit. The 
youth of fifteen years can not be expected to know 
very much more to-day than the youth of the same 
age ten years ago might have known; for both start 
from the same point of absolute ignorance, with the 
same mental powers, and have the same time for 
development. Whatever superiority the youth of to- 
day may evince will be largely due to improved meth- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 123 

ods of instruction. There can be no doubt that the 
methods of instruction at the present time are 
in most respects superior to the methods of former 
times. They certainly produce men with far more 
knowledge, and I think I may safely say that they 
produce scholars with much greater culture than 
did the methods of former times. But I very much 
doubt that they produce more vigorous thinkers than 
did the former methods — better scholars but not 
mightier men. And the reason of this is evident. The 
amount required to be learned has been vastly in- 
creased; but the paths of learning have been made 
smooth and level. Every possible facility for the 
acquisition of knowledge is given to the student, every 
possible ray of light is concentrated upon the page 
he is to learn. As a consequence, rapid progress is 
possible and comparatively easy. Almost all that is 
needed on the part of the student is industry and a 
good memory. His mind is a reservoir into which 
every one of his instructors pours as much of knowl- 
edge as he possibly can. But the human mind has 
other faculties than memory, and for the proper de- 
velopment of the mind these other faculties ought to 
be exercised. Abraham Lincoln was a man, as he de- 
scribed himself, of "imperfect education." What did 
he know of the simple beauties of Homer, or of the 
philosophy of Socrates, or of the divine energy of De- 
mosthenes, or of the polished eloquence of Cicero, or 
of the Epicurean elegance of Horace? Yet where was 
the man in the United States who could have con- 
structed better the argument in his Cooper Institute 
speech, or could have created that marvel of simple 
but sublime eloquence, his speech at Gettysburg? He 
did not know many things, but he knew some things, 



124 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

and upon them he had thought, bringing into exer- 
cise all the faculties of his mind, and thereby develop- 
ing — not what we call scholarship, but something 
which is far above scholarship — the broadest, highest, 
most perfect manhood of the intellect. He studied 
Euclid until he knew what "demonstrate" meant. 
When he knew what "demonstrate" meant, he knew 
how to demonstrate, not merely propositions in Eu- 
clid, but propositions affecting the national prosperity 
and life. It was not with him a mere matter of 
memory. It was not the docile following in the steps 
of a teacher. It was profound thinking upon what 
he studied; a complete assimilation to his own intel- 
lect of the processes of reasoning; an absolute appro- 
priation of the certain courses of mathematics to the 
purposes of his own mind in every department of 
life. And so he became something more than the legal 
humorist of a country town; something more than 
a politician and a political orator; something more 
than a member of Congress; something more than a 
president. Amid the desolation of a great civil war, 
beneath the cloud of doubt and uncertainty which 
hung over the destinies of the nation, tortured by 
the envenomed shafts of his enemies, and crucified 
by the distrust of his friends, wrapping himself in a 
mantle of seemingly cheerful levity, he thought pro- 
foundly upon the awful problems which concerned 
the destinies of his country, and he solved them, dem- 
onstrating to the country the correctness of his so- 
lution ; and thus he became at last the embodied con- 
science, patriotism, thought, and force of the nation; 
and the tears that fell in every loyal household of the 
country, when he died, attest the moral and intellec- 
tual greatness of this man of "imperfect education." 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 125 

The lesson of all this is not far to seek. It is that 
real education, perfect or imperfect, is something 
more than the mere acquisition of knowledge. It 
is the appropriation of knowledge in such a way as 
to produce power. Eeal education is self-education. 
It is the result of work done by the student and not 
for him. The mind is not a reservoir. It is a living 
organism, and what we put into it must be its nour- 
ishment and make it grow. And it is just here, if 
anywhere, that our modern system of education is 
in danger of breaking down. We are in great danger 
of substituting "cramming" for training, and of mak- 
ing human minds "reservoirs, something merely re- 
ceptive, instead of living springs capable, under prop- 
er management, of throwing out larger and better 
streams." I am not indifferent to the acquisitions of 
students, but I am far more concerned for their 
growth. I am not indifferent as to what students 
shall study, but I am more concerned as to how they 
shall study. If natural science, for example, is so 
studied as to make the student master of nothing but 
the results of previous investigators' observation and 
induction, without developing in the student both 
the power and the habit of observation and induction, 
it seems to me that it is not studied in the right way. 
If the classical languages are so studied that no men- 
tal discipline is derived from the careful observation 
of the laws of the language, and no culture is gained 
as the poetry and eloquence and philosophy of Greek 
and Roman thinkers are converted into lifeless, and, 
it may be, hideous English, it seems to me that the 
classics are not studied in the right way. And if 
history is studied in such a manner that the student 
gains from it nothing more than the ability to answer 



126 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

an unlimited number of questions as to the dates of 
battles and the sequence of rulers, it seems to me that 
history is not studied in the right way. 

I have thus dwelt upon the disciplinary part of 
education because, important as it is, it is yet likely 
in this age of hurry to be overlooked, and because, 
when it has been properly attended to, other things 
will almost take care of themselves. The scholar is 
to be developed before the specialist, and the man 
before the statesman. In the higher work of the uni- 
versity it is eminently proper that there should be a 
reasonable degree of choice given to the student as 
to what branches he shall study. When the intellect 
has been properly trained by the early disciplinary 
studies, it is no degradation either of the student or 
of scholarship to suffer the learner to pursue those 
studies for which he has some aptitude as well as some 
positive taste. It is the veriest humbug in education 
that a man must always study what he dislikes, and 
must always try to do what it is a priori probable 
that he can never do well. It is like trying to make 
painters of the color-blind and orators of the deaf and 
dumb. Why may we not heartily try to develop and 
make the most of those faculties God has given us, 
instead of trying to supplement God's work by devel- 
oping faculties He never gave us? If, therefore, a 
man has a taste for the study of nature, and an apti- 
tude for the scientific method of investigation, by 
all means let him devote himself to nature and the 
study of her laws. He will do better work and be in all v 
respects a better man by following the natural bent 
of his mind, than if he were shut up to the study of 
Greek tragedy, for which he has no natural taste. 
So, too, the man of poetic feeling, of imagination, with 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 127 

a taste for literature and a faculty for acquiring lan- 
guages, and who hopes some day himself to be a lit- 
erary artist, why, after years of mental discipline 
in preparatory schools, should he be required to keep 
on to the end of his university course in mathematical 
and scientific studies with the student who expects 
to be a civil engineer or an analytical chemist? Is 
it "degrading" to exercise common sense in education, 
and adapt means to ends? Is it "degrading" to suffer 
a man to learn what he expects to spend his life in do- 
ing? Or does higher education consist in making a 
man try to do what he can never do well, and what, 
of choice, he would never do at all? The ultimate 
object to be secured by education, so far as intellec- 
tual training is concerned, is power. But this power 
is not to be gained by devotion to any single depart- 
ment in a university course. No student in a uni- 
versity, unless he is in the professional and technical 
schools, ought to be an embryo minister, doctor, or 
lawyer, or an embryo politician, chemist, or teacher, 
looking only to what will pay in his life-work. The 
future statesman will not be injured by knowing some- 
thing of intellectual philosophy and ethics, as well 
as political economy and history ; and the future cler- 
gyman may well study the economic sciences and his- 
tory of this world before he devotes himself exclu- 
sively to the contemplation of the next world. The 
university ought, doubtless, to throw some light upon 
the future path of its scholars; but it ought, also, to 
keep the culture of its scholars as broad as possible 
to the very last moment of their student life. Before 
they enter upon their professional studies, the uni- 
versity ought to have corrected forever their intellec- 
tual near-sightedness, and ought to have created in 



128 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

their minds a conviction that there are more things 
in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their tech- 
nical or professional philosophy. It onght to have 
taught them that the highest attainments of the in- 
tellect are little more than the perception of harmony 
in the laws of matter and of spirit — a harmony that 
was as perfect before man discovered it as it is now^ 
but with the creation of which he had nothing to do. 
It ought to have taught them that the same truth 
holds good with reference to all their so-called arts 
and sciences; that language existed before grammar; 
that poetry and oratory flourished before rhetoric; 
that elements combined according to invariable laws 
before chemistry was known; that feeling, thought, 
and will existed before mental philosophy; that na- 
tions, governments, and statesmen flourished before 
political economy became a science; and that God 
made and ruled the universe before there was what 
men call "systematic theology." The scholar, rejoic- 
ing in the discoveries that the human mind has made, 
may yet well be humble when he reflects that they 
are all nothing more than the finding out of the laws 
according to which the Master mind has ordained 
that the universe shall move; and that the sum of 
human acquisition is less than the veriest primer of 
science as known to the great Architect of all. 

A very common demand at the present time is 
that education shall be "practical" — a very just de- 
mand, indeed, if by "practical" is meant "useful," but 
a very degrading demand, indeed, if "practical" means 
merely "money-making." This is unquestionably a 
practical age. Ours is a comparatively new country. 
It is natural that material interests should be promi- 
nent in the minds of the people. Great possibilities 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 129 

of accumu latin g wealth exist, and wealth brings with 
it far more than formerly. The fairly educated man 
to-day finds wealth an effective means of adding to 
his pleasures, giving him joys that are purely intel- 
lectual. He can read with delight the best authors. 
He can fill his house with the most charming works 
of art. But, after all, it is education which makes 
it possible for a man to enjoy the things in literature 
and art which wealth can procure. Wealth is a great 
convenience and comfort; education is a necessity. 
If either must be sacrificed, let us not so degrade our 
human nature as to think for a moment that educa- 
tion, the development of the human mind, its tastes, 
its perception, its powers, ought to be sacrificed to 
wealth, the power to buy horses, and wines, and 
houses, and delicacies for the delight of the body. 
Heaven save us from such a materialism as that. Yet,, 
it can not be denied that the tendency to seek wealth 
with an utter absorption of interest, as if wealth for 
its own sake were the one thing needful, is altogether 
too common. It shows itself not merely in the restless, 
exciting, reposeless life of our people; but, what is 
much more sad, it shows itself in the rapidly dimin- 
ishing classes as you go higher and higher in our 
schools. It shows itself in the smaller classes in the 
closing years of our university course. "Get just 
enough education to enable you to make money, and 
then make money." That is the theory of life of too 
many. This is an unhealthy state of things. We are 
not living in such a primitive age that any such de- 
votion to material interests is necessary. There are 
no forests that must be felled, no fields that must be 
broken up and sowed with wheat, no railroads that 
must be built, no new towns that must be founded,. 



130 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

and all at once, so that our boys must come out of 
school half educated in order to help. This country 
is prosperous enough, Minnesota is rich enough to 
give an education to her sons and daughters; and, if, 
through overvaluing wealth or undervaluing learning, 
this education is not gained by the youth of our com- 
monwealth, a most terrible mistake is made. The life 
is more than meat; the man is more than his environ- 
ment. 

But the people of this country are too wise to fol- 
low any business a great while unless it pays. There 
is no reason why they should follow education more 
than anything else unless it pays. It is, then, plainly 
the business of the university to furnish an education 
that will pay for the time and labor expended in get- 
ting it. It is also the business of the university to cul- 
tivate such a taste as will prevent the profitableness 
of education from being judged by a money standard 
— a taste that will recognize the fact that Agassiz, 
famous for his scientific attainments and a benefactor 
of mankind by reason of his scientific discoveries, 
was nobler when he said that he had no time for 
making money, than he would have been had he used 
his knowledge successfully for acquiring untold 
wealth. How, then, can the university prove its real 
value to the state? It must not only be able to give 
instruction in all true learning, but it must be some- 
thing more than a school for teaching. It must be 
in the highest sense a seat of learning, not merely of 
learning as represented in libraries and museums, 
though it should be rich in these, but of learning as 
represented in the scholarship of its various faculties. 
Its value is not to be measured by the number of its 
students or graduates. No arithmetical calculations 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 131 

which shall seemingly show the cost of educating each 
student can tell the profit or loss to the state. For, 
in the first place, the education of the students in 
the university will be but a part, and not necessarily 
the largest part, of the good which the university 
will do. Its influence ought to be felt not here alone 
in the academic buildings, but in every school in 
the whole state. It is not the common school which 
pushes up the university; it is the university which 
lifts up the common school. It does this by setting 
up a higher standard of excellence in scholarship; 
by opening wider and more interesting fields of study ; 
by creating a better and more positive taste for learn- 
ing; by holding out inducements to every scholar to 
pursue his studies longer, and avail himself of all 
the advantages of education furnished by the state; 
and by stimulating scholars and teachers alike to do 
good and faithful work, by the prospect of reward in 
admission to the higher work of the university. 

Again, one mind thoroughly trained may be of 
more service to the state than ten thousand untrained. 
A Morse and a Whitney compensate for all that it 
costs to train a whole generation. No one can fore- 
cast the future of any scholar. We must train as 
many as we can; hoping good things of all, and ex- 
pecting great things of some. Ralph Waldo Emerson 
once said of a class of one hundred and fifty young 
men, in an eastern college, that there must be among 
them three or four that it was worth while to try to 
make something of. I think it is worth while to try 
to make something of the whole one hundred and fif- 
ty. Perhaps only three or four can be "something" 
as Emerson would estimate "something"; but the 
highest success in life is often the result of such a 



132 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

combination of intellectual and moral faculties as 
the deepest philosopher would find it hard to explain ; 
and in most young men, if proper observation of their 
capacity is made, and proper direction given to their 
energies, there will be found the making of a useful 
man in some department of intellectual labor, even 
if they be not what Emerson would call "something." 
But the best results for the students can not be 
obtained by mere routine teaching. President Gar- 
field was a graduate of Williams College, with a not 
unnatural enthusiastic admiration for Mark Hopkins, 
the president of that institution. In an address de- 
livered at Washington the year before he was elected 
president, Garfield said : "It has long been my opin- 
ion that we are all educated, whether children, men, 
or women, far more by personal influence than by 
books or the apparatus of schools. If I could be tak- 
en back into boyhood to-day, and had all the libraries 
and apparatus of a university, with ordinary routine 
professors, offered me on the one hand, and on the 
other a great, luminous, rich-souled man, such as Dr. 
Hopkins was twenty years ago, in a tent in the woods 
alone, I should say: 'Give me Dr. Hopkins for my 
college course, rather than any university with only 
Toutine professors.' The privilege of sitting down 
Defore a great, clear-headed, large-hearted man, and 
breathing the atmosphere of his life, and being drawn 
up to him and lifted up by him, and learning his meth- 
ods of thinking and living, is in itself an enormous 
educating power." And what Garfield said of Dr. 
Hopkins, many a student at Rugby, even after a full 
experience of either Oxford or Cambridge, would un- 
doubtedly have said of Dr. Arnold, the master of Rug- 
by. We can sympathize with this general idea that 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 133 

communion with a large-minded and large-hearted 
man is of itself a liberal education. But while in its 
spirit this is true, in its letter it is false. The educa- 
tion of the present day is too complex to be derived 
from any one man, so that the instruction in various 
departments, even by routine professors, may be of no 
little value. But, nevertheless, the idea contained in 
the passage I have quoted is of great importance. In- 
spiration without instruction is of little value. We 
all admit that. But instruction with inspiration is 
worth a great deal more than instruction without in- 
spiration. And so, in order that the best may be se- 
cured for every student, there is need of that enthu- 
siasm on the part of each instructor which springs 
from a thorough appreciation of the value of the 
knowledge which he proposes to impart, and from a 
sense of responsibility as being intrusted with a de- 
partment of learning in which to make researches for 
the good of the world — an enthusiasm which can not 
fail to produce zeal in study and earnestness in teach- 
ing. 

Our students are less mature, less advanced in 
hoth years and study than are the students in Ger- 
man universities. They can not, therefore, wisely 
ne allowed the same absolute freedom, and be so en- 
tirely exempt from oversight as are the students in 
these foreign universities. They are in that part of 
their life when character is forming with great ra- 
pidity ; the influences about them ought to be of such 
a kind, therefore, as will conduce to the formation 
of the best character. They need to be taught ethics, 
and the highest kind of ethics — not as a series of in- 
dependent rules, but as a consistent science. They 
need to be guided by the example of those who are 



134 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

set over them for instruction, and this example should 
be the best possible as it certainly will be very pow- 
erful. A true life in a teacher is more potent for 
good than any dogmas however correct. A sense of 
honor, a regard for truth, the practice of virtue, the 
recognition and observance of all those obligations 
which rest upon us as individuals and as social beings, 
not omitting the highest of all obligations, those which 
we owe to God, — certainly the value of all these can 
not be overlooked by wise educators anywhere; and 
it will not be overlooked here. We can not, as we 
cultivate the minds of the young, be indifferent to the 
moral purposes which shall control them, and shall 
determine the uses to which increased mental power 
and knowledge will be put. Education is far from 
being in itself a panacea for human ills. It is alike a 
power for evil and for good. It renders much greater 
the possibilities of both. If devoted to evil, it be- 
comes a curse both to its possessor and to mankind; 
but if consecrated to the service of mankind, and thus 
to the glory of God, its value is beyond calculation. 
This University is not and can not be sectarian. It 
is not and can not be partisan. But it is, it can be, 
and it shall be faithful to truth. I am not an agnos- 
tic, and I do not propose to become an instrument for 
making agnostics of others. I think that life is worth 
living, but I should very much doubt it if I did not 
believe that there were for every human being possi- 
bilities of glory and honor and immortality here- 
after, revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Cherish- 
ing this belief as in some measure the inspiration 
of life, I must be permitted to act in all my relations, 
public and private, as befits a man who does cherish 
such a belief; and I know that far greater evil will 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 135 

come to those entrusted to my care should I be faith- 
less to my belief, than will ever come from the strict- 
est fidelity thereto. 

The success of the university in its work will de- 
pend very largely upon the harmony and concert of 
action of its instructors. The university is a kind of 
family. It ought to be bound together like a family 
by oneness of interest. The law which governs its 
inner life, like that which governs the inner life of 
the family, should be the law of love. There must be 
authority in both. Weakness is not love. Law is 
not cruelty. But it is not by an arbitrary exercise of 
power that a good father secures the obedience of his 
children. It is not by selfishness, isolation, or indif- 
ference to the common good that brothers and sisters 
make their home-life delightful. A common regard 
for the good of the family, and a common love of each 
member of the family for all the others, are the only 
forces by which a happy and prosperous home-life 
can be secured. So in a university, there must be 
on the part of each instructor a desire to promote 
the highest interests of the institution, and a readi- 
ness to co-operate with the rest of the instructors in 
every effort to promote the general good. 

The course of study in this university seems to 
me to be characterized by a wise conservatism, which 
is reverent towards all that is good in the education 
of former times, and by a wide-awake spirit of prog- 
ress, which appreciates the learning of the present. 
For example, I am very glad that provision is made 
for teaching both Greek and Latin; and I sincerely 
hope that an increasing number of students will from 
year to year manifest a desire to take a complete clas- 
sical course. On the other hand, it is no less pleasant 
—10 



136 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

to observe that the study of modern languages is here 
made specially prominent, and that more than ordi- 
nary facilities are afforded for acquiring a knowledge 
of the Romance, German, Scandinavian, and English 
languages and literatures. When one reads the clear 
and vigorous English of such a scientist as Professor 
Huxley r he appreciates the fact that culture in lan- 
guage is not incompatible with the highest scientific 
attainments, and is of the greatest value as a prepa- 
ration for communicating scientific truth. A scientific 
course ought to embrace a generous culture in lan- 
guage; and when it does, the liberal development of 
this department becomes of the highest importance 
to the state. The same principle applies to the College 
of Mechanic Arts, a department which, if properly 
developed, can hardly fail to be attractive to many 
students, and to be of very high practical value. I 
speak of these points merely by way of illustration, 
and not as an attempt to discuss the curriculum of the 
university. 

If the work done here is as good as the possibilities 
are great, there is no reason why a student should not 
here gain an education that will qualify him for the 
practical work of life, or for the prosecution of his 
studies and investigations in higher regions of 
thought. There is much that is inspiring about an 
old university, with its traditions, its broad student 
life, its many departments, its world-wide influence, 
and its nourishment drawn from all quarters of the 
globe. If great age were necessary to success, we 
might well be discouraged. But the oldest univer- 
sities were once young, and some of the youngest 
universities are among the best. We have started 
with the benefit of all past experience. Let us have 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 137 

here the best kind of teaching and we shall not fail 
to have the best kind of scholars. Students will 
come to us in generous numbers, if we can do for 
them what they need. And I think I can not be 
mistaken in the belief that as our courses of study 
in the later years shall grow richer in subjects of 
living interest, and shall prove their real value in 
superadding the most important knowledge to the 
discipline of the earlier years, a constantly increas- 
ing number of students will be more reluctant than 
heretofore to leave the university without complet- 
ing its entire course of study. 

The generosity which provides a university for 
higher education ought to be appreciated by parents 
throughout this state. No better inheritance can be 
given to a child than a good education. With this, 
unnumbered sources of enjoyment are opened, and 
the possibilities of a useful life are increased. It is 
possible that the educated man may sometimes be 
outstripped in life by the so-called uneducated. It 
is quite possible that, with widened views of the 
ever-expanding fields of knowledge, and from person- 
al experience of other minds brighter than his own, 
there may come to the student a distrust of his own 
attainments and powers, which may cause him to 
shrink from the rough conflicts of active or profes- 
sional life. It is quite possible that refinement may 
be gained at the expense of vigor. Certainly there 
is nothing so well-fitted to destroy a man's self-con- 
ceit as thorough education, and doubtless self-con- 
ceit in some men is mightier than cultivated intel- 
lect in others. But such results as I have hinted 
at are not naturally to be expected from education. 
It is simply reason to believe that a man will sue- 



138 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

ceed best with a cultivated and well-informed mind. 
The history of our country proves this. But when 
one with such a mind fails, as sometimes happens, 
he is not even then without his compensations. For 
in his own thoughts and studies in the world in 
which he has lived apart from the great turbulent 
world of matter in which he has made a failure of 
it, does he not find a delight which goes far towards 
reconciling him to the loss of other things? 

We ask, then, the people of this state to sustain 
this University by giving to it their sons and daugh- 
ters to be educated. We ask the boys and girls of 
Minnesota to remember that this University exists 
for them and belongs to them. If they will come 
to us, we will do all that we can to give them dis- 
cipline, culture, knowledge, power — all that we can 
to ennoble their characters and to confirm their de- 
votion to the highest truth. 

It is a delightful experience for a teacher to 
quicken the intellect of a scholar. It is a no less 
delightful experience for a teacher to quicken the 
moral faculties of a student, and make him strong 
to resist temptations to evil. To win the confidence 
and regard of his pupils, while yet holding them fast 
to courses of discipline and inspiring them to seek 
the highest things in knowledge, so that he may be 
to them not merely "guide or philosopher," but 
"friend," to whom in any emergency, in any mo- 
ment of special trial, they would come with a full 
assurance of sympathy and help, as they might to 
their own father in the distant home, this, it seems 
to me, must be the crowning joy of the wise educa- 
tor ; for he knows that so long as his pupils are bound 
to him by the ties of personal affection, his power 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 139 

both to stimulate them in intellectual work, and to 
restrain them from everything hurtful will be almost 
complete. 

I hope there will be developed here, among the 
students, if it does not already exist, a feeling of 
love for the University — a love that shall last as long 
as life itself. I hope that all our students, as they 
graduate and go out into the world, will look back 
to this place as to what was once their home, and 
what, in a very high sense, was their birth-place; 
that they will have pleasant memories of something 
besides recitations and lectures; that they will re- 
call many a word of counsel, of encouragement, of 
inspiration, given to them by the instructors out- 
side the lines of daily routine ; and that, as the years 
pass on, they will love to come back to us and en- 
courage us in our work, by showing wiiat noble 
men and women they have become. That is the kind 
of loyalty to the University we shall seek to inspire, 
a loyalty born of the remembrance that here, in 
the very crisis of life, kindness and sympathy were 
experienced, here intellectual power and moral earn- 
estness were acquired, and here an inspiration to 
a true life was given, an inspiration whose voice has 
been heard in all the years that are past, and, they 
know, will never be silent in the years that are to 
come. 



THE DISSEMINATION OF EDUCATED MEN* 

The orthodox idea of a college education has 
always emphasized the importance of discipline and 
has deprecated any haste towards specializing. It 
maintains, as was universally maintained fifty years 
ago, that the ideal education is not an agency for 
teaching a man particular facts that are going to be 
of service to him. The higher institutions of learning 
should undertake to teach theory rather than prac- 
tice, methods of reasoning rather than methods of 
doing things. The college stands for the non-com- 
mercial interests, the traditional public sentiment; 
and the university is something more than a place 
for training professional experts; it is a place for 
training citizens for a life of freedom and leadership. 

These sentiments are, no doubt, the governing sen- 
timents in most of the New England colleges of to-day, 
as they have been in the past. It is possible that 
they still meet the conditions of these college con- 
stituencies as fully as they did a century ago, though 
I very much doubt it. But the longer I study the 
problem of student life and the economic conditions 
of our country, the more I am led to suspect that 
there is a fallacy somewhere in the old argument; 
the more I am convinced that a college education 

*An address delivered at the Twenty-eighth Annual Commencement 
of the University of Minnesota, June 7th, 1900. 



142 THE DISSEMINATION 

ought to fit a man for something; and I am by no 
means certain that it is not a better education to 
become master of one great subject, like biology for 
example, than it is to learn a little about a number 
of subjects. And so I am not as afraid of specializ- 
ing as I once was, though I have in no degree lost 
my regard for discipline and culture. I do not, 
however, believe that discipline is sacrificed when 
thorough work is made of any one great subject, half 
as much even as it is when the course of study is the 
hop, skip, and jump of the curriculum of some of our 
colleges. 

Certainly if a man knows what he intends to do 
and, as he goes through college, can get knowledge 
and discipline out of the study of subjects that will 
be helpful to him, there can be no objection to his 
doing so. Nor is there any merit so far as I can see 
in hunting for discipline in subjects that are intel- 
lectually and practically without interest to you. 

But it is not my purpose to speak particularly 
of the course of study in colleges or to discuss the 
old question of knowledge vs. discipline, though the 
subject has a bearing upon what I wish to say. We 
hear a great deal about the importance of the dis- 
semination of learning. I propose to speak upon 
the dissemination of learned men, or the distribution 
of educated men. By that I mean increasing 
the number of vocations in which graduates of 
colleges may honorably and usefully engage; the 
bringing of trained intellects into contact with 
life in larger areas; the opening of wider fields for 
the exercise of the trained powers of mind and heart, 
and the uplifting of untold thousands more of human- 
ity by the inspiring contact. I can not treat the 



OF EDUCATED MEN 143 

subject exhaustively (unless I speak very long) but 
I shall have accomplished my purpose if I shall suc- 
ceed in inducing the young graduates to carefully 
reconsider their plans of life. 

In the natural course of things the child is sent 
to school as soon as he is old enough. He passes 
on from one grade to another till he is ready to 
enter the high school. No other course appearing 
desirable, he goes through the high school. If it 
is possible for either his parents or himself to meet 
the expense, he goes to college and in due time is 
graduated. Multitudes, of course, stop all along the 
road he has traveled; but not an inconsiderable num- 
ber have kept step with him and at last hold the 
diploma of the college. What shall become of those 
who fell out by the way it is impossible to tell. 
It is quite useless even to speculate concerning their 
fate. They have doubtless found something to do 
suited to their attainments. Our inquiry is concern- 
ing the fate of these young graduates. What shall 
they do? What shall they be? Many of them have 
had during their years of training more or less defi- 
nite purpose as to their final occupation. Generally 
the selection of an occupation has been made for 
some reason other than a sense of special personal 
adaptation for the chosen work, or from a feeling 
that more persons are needed in that work. The 
occupation is usually selected because it is seen to 
be one that in the past has brought to some of its 
followers honor and money. The more honor and 
money there is in it the more desirable the occupation. 
This is reasonable enough. But if all graduates are 
to determine their future life by such considerations 
only, all graduates are going to enter at most but a 



144 THE DISSEMINATION 

few of the possible occupations, and these occupations 
are going to be unduly crowded. What is needed is 
the dissemination of men of education among a larger 
number of fields of labor, and the general lifting 
up of the character of the work done in these fields 
as a consequence. 

One of the most difficult questions which parents 
have to answer at the present time is what shall we 
do with our children, and especially with our boys? 
The methods of conducting business have so changed 
within a few years that it is much more difficult than 
formerly for young men to start in business for 
themselves. The opportunity of learning what was 
called a trade is much less frequent than formerly, 
and, indeed, a trade so called is much less important 
than formerly. The professions of law, medicine, and 
theology are all notoriously overcrowded. The law 
business, except in rare cases where large corpora- 
tions are concerned, has diminished, while lawyers 
have multiplied. Diseases are common enough, but 
they do not increase as fast as the doctors. And as 
for the ministers, while the old cry of the neces- 
sity of Christian education partly to supply the 
churches with ministers, is still heard, every one 
familiar with the subject knows that there are already 
far more clergymen than there are supporting 
churches, and that the old system of hiring men to 
study for the ministry is no longer necessary or desir- 
able. 

These professions are unduly crowded, not merely 
because by far too large a number of the graduates 
of colleges enter them, but because their ranks are 
further swelled by large numbers of persons who 
have had no collegiate training. Some of these no 



OF EDUCATED MEN 145 

doubt are excellent men in their profession but many 
are only hungry competitors for work. The law 
and medical schools and, to some extent, the theo- 
logical seminaries are all industriously engaged in 
graduating a multitude of these unscholarly men, and 
none but the ablest and most successful men in the 
professions whose position is already assured, can 
contemplate the situation with composure. 

The trades unions guard with jealous care against 
too large an influx of candidates for work into their 
ranks, and, as one looks over the whole field of labor, 
he finds only one class of men who still heartily 
welcome all newcomers to their ranks and are espe- 
cially glad to welcome any one who possesses more 
knowledge and skill than they do themselves. This 
class is the farmers. While all other classes of labor- 
ers are protesting against educating too many men to 
compete with them, the complaint of the farmer, so 
far as he makes any, is against educating away from 
the farm rather than for the farm. And I think 
that the brightest fact in our economic condition as 
a country is the multitude of acres that are still inad- 
equately tilled, if tilled at all, and the generous atti- 
tude of the farmers towards all who are seeking an 
opportunity to earn a living. With a fixed quantity 
of arable land in the world, and a population ever 
increasing not only in numbers but in appetite and 
taste, it can hardly be supposed that production will 
ever for any length of time exceed the demand for 
the products of the soil, and, therefore, it may be 
hoped that the generous attitude of the farmers 
towards all the other sons of toil will never result 
in great misfortune to themselves. 

What shall we do with our boys? Of course it 



146 THE DISSEMINATION 

is easy to answer the question as to some boys. The 
boy who has special talent for some one thing which 
he can do as few others can, will always be in demand. 
The boy who can make cartoons more striking and 
pleasing and instructive than any one else can, will 
have no trouble in finding work. Every newspaper 
that has enterprise and sense and capital enough to 
employ a cartoonist will want him. The boy who 
has humor and literary skill and the creative faculty 
will make a place for himself and will be sought after 
instead of having to seek. But how few these are 
even among the so-called educated men. For most 
men of even higher education the question that was 
asked about them 3 r ears ago, what shall we do with 
our boys, is still unanswered. The question will be 
answered somewhere in the coming years. It may 
be wisely answered or foolishly answered. It may 
be thoughtfully answered by the boys themselves. 
It may be accidentally answered. But it certainly 
is not desirable that most men's lives should be di- 
rected by accidents or that they should plunge into 
life with no carefully considered scheme of what they 
propose to do. Here is where the boy who has pow- 
erful and influential friends has a great and lasting 
advantage over the boy who has none. A friend 
of his father's makes a place for him in his store 
with every possibility of rising in position and salary, 
of becoming a partner in the concern, and a partner 
of the senior partner's daughter for life. He is cared 
for. A great railroad company that knows the value 
of capable and trustworthy men and, when it gets 
such, keeps them and makes the most of them, can 
be induced to give some of the boys a chance; but 
it generally requires influence to secure these places, 



OF EDUCATED MEN 147 

and happy is the boy whose father is on good terms 
with the authorities who are to assign the places. 
So in one way or another, by reason of respectable 
connections or family influence, or personal friend- 
ships, or something besides absolute merit at the 
start, a good many find places and go to work at 
what proves to be a life-work. But a great army 
of waiting men remains who have not been so for- 
tunate, and a still larger army of boys soon to be 
men is coming on; and all over the land parents 
are asking the old question, what shall we do with 
our boys? I shall not attempt to answer that ques- 
tion to-day. I can not answer it in any large way 
so that individuals would know any better what to do 
with their boys than they do now. But I shall lay 
down a few principles which, if acted on generally, 
ought to be helpful in answering this question. 

First: Do not try to put your boy into work 
for which he is not fit. You naturally have a high 
opinion of your boy's ability and entertain high hopes 
of his future career. You may be entirely right in 
your judgment, and your boy may be as capable as 
you think he is. If so, you are to be congratulated. 
But in a multitude of cases parents are mistaken 
and are misled, in deciding what to do with their 
boys, by the ambitions desire to see them in some high 
place. What credit is it to be a clergyman, if one can 
not preach so that any one would wish to hear him? 
What credit to be a lawyer, if you are to be the 
laughing stock of the bar? What credit to be a 
doctor, if you can gain but few patients and soon 
bury those? What credit to be in high position of 
any kind and not be able to discharge the duties of 
the position as they ought to be discharged? The 



148 THE DISSEMINATION 

world is full of men who only half live because they 
are in an uncongenial atmosphere and can hardly 
breathe, because they are laboring at w T ork for which 
they have no natural or acquired adaptation. Don't 
spoil a good, jolly, honest, clean-souled farmer, such 
as your boy no doubt might be, for the sake of mak- 
ing him a tame and uninteresting clergyman or a 
nervous and unsuccessful lawyer, as it is quite pos- 
sible he would be if he were a clergyman or a lawyer 
at all. He may be a thoroughly sensible boy and 
he may be well-educated and yet have no adequate 
fitness for either the pulpit or the bar. The edu- 
cated man is most powerful when he is equal not 
only to all the duties of the position he fills, but, if 
need be, of something larger and better; while no 
one can be more unhappy than the educated man 
whose every power is taxed to the utmost to meet 
the duties of his position and who is in constant terror 
lest he shall fail to meet the requirements. There 
must be some reserve power in either a successful 
or a happy life. There is no reserve power, quite 
the contrary, when the place is too large for the man. 
Second : Do not seek for your boy a place where 
he will have an easy time, or where he can acquire 
a competence early and thus be able to retire from 
work early and spend most of his life in leisure. In 
a word, don't make it a point to help your boy to 
escape work. Life without work is of no value. A 
man ought to try to make the world better for his 
living in it, and to that end he ought to produce 
more value than he consumes. But on the narrow 
ground of personal advantage it is much better to 
work and to keep on working as long as the mental 
and bodily powers will permit than to spend a large 



OF EDUCATED MEN 149 

part of life in ease and idleness. No real force of 
character is developed by idleness. If you want your 
boy to be a real man, put him where he can do real 
work and where he will always have plenty of it 
to do. He will grow stronger under the discipline 
and will gain from his own experience in the con- 
flict a larger view of the world's needs and a higher 
inspiration to do his part in supplying these needs. 
His life will tell for something good, and that is the 
only life that is worth living. Give your boy by all 
means a chance to lead such a life. 

Third : See that the preparation of your boy for 
what you set him to do is perfect. This is no age 
for boys who can do one thing as well as another but 
nothing very well. Whoever is an expert in anything 
is sure of employment as long as the world needs 
that thing at all. If the boy is to be a doctor, give 
him the hospital for training after the medical school, 
if possible. If he is to be in a profession requiring 
public speaking, train him till he can speak so that 
men will love to hear him, so that he will rest and 
not weary his hearers as they listen to him. Mne- 
tenths of public speaking is ineffective because of 
lack of proper training. So with the hand. It can 
be trained to marvelous correctness in drawing; to 
wonderful skill in creating. There are multitudes of 
workmen who can do ordinary work; but there are 
also workmen who, in the greatness of their skill and 
achievements, tower above all their fellows as do 
Demosthenes and Webster above ordinary speakers. 
It is better to make sure of final success by taking 
full time and pains to prepare, than to swell the num- 
ber of the unsuccessful by attempting to do what you 
are not in the fullest degree prepared for. 



150 THE DISSEMINATION 

Finally: Don't be unreasonably ambitious for 
your boy nor load him down with expectations which 
he knows he can never realize. Be content, if he can 
be no more, to have him a good, clean, manly fellow, 
who will do faithfully and well what he can; who 
will love you, and love his country, and love his God. 
Help him, encourage him, cheer him, love him, but 
don't crush him with your unreasonable ambition 
to have him great. There are not many really great 
men in the world. But it is quite possible to be 
happy and useful without being great. And certainly 
nothing could be more foolish for parents or children 
than to be miserable or make each other miserable 
by expecting the impossible. 

Following these general principles, we may safely 
give our children all the education we can. 

It is not possible for the so-called higher education 
to become too common, if to those who secure it 
the possible field for activity is to be enlarged there- 
by, and not made smaller. But if, with each access 
of knowledge and culture, wide fields are to be closed 
to the advancing student, so that at last only the 
learned professions are to be available as a field 
of labor, only leaders of the people are to be the 
outcome of this training, then manifestly it is quite 
possible for multitudes of people to get a higher 
education who never ought to get it. For not all 
men are fitted for leadership no matter what their 
education. Leadership is not in them. Large num- 
bers of those who in these days are passing through 
college are persons of no exalted ability. They are 
fitted by nature for the practical work of life. They 
would make good farmers, good mechanics, good 
men of affairs, even if they had not the higher edu- 



OF EDUCATED MEN 151 

cation. With this higher education, they ought to 
be even better farmers and mechanics and men of 
affairs, and in very many cases this is just what they 
should be and what they could really bless the world 
by being. They can lift up and make glorious the 
labor in the realm of industry and economics, where- 
as if, simply because they have pursued a certain 
formulated course of study in a college, they must 
be constrained to say good-bye to these supposedly 
humbler pursuits and enter with all the rest of the 
crowd of college graduates into the arena of the 
learned professions and of statesmanship, it were 
better that their education had not been carried so 
far, and that they had been trained only for the work 
which they were given a natural capacity to perform. 
In a word, if a boy has natural capacity that would 
make him a good and successful farmer — and that, 
let me tell you, is a capacity not to be despised — 
there is no objection to his getting as much culture 
as the lawyer or the minister, if he does not in con- 
sequence insist on being a lawyer or a minister. 

It is an undoubted fact that large numbers of 
college graduates now enter mercantile and other 
lines of business who, if they had graduated forty 
years ago, would have entered the so-called profes- 
sions. It was not uncommon then for sixty or seventy 
per cent, of a class to enter these professions. Now 
it is rare indeed that so large a part of a graduat- 
ing class does so. The logic of events is opening 
doors here and there into other occupations, and the 
graduates are wise enough to enter. New fields for 
the educated man who will consent to be useful with- 
out being either a lawyer, a doctor, or a clergyman, 
are multiplying. I may mention a few of these. 

-11 



152 THE DISSEMINATION 

First: Teaching. To many impecunious gradu- 
ates of college the work of teaching has always fur- 
nished an assured hope of at least temporary em- 
ployment, a means of bridging over the chasm which 
separates the man from his high destiny that is to be. 
But teaching has now become a profession and ought 
no longer to be regarded as a mere makeshift till 
permanent work is secured. It is by no means as 
easy as it was for the disciplined scholar who knows 
a little of many things and not a great deal of any- 
thing — having never specialized — to command a sat- 
isfactory position as teacher in a school of sufficient 
rank to deserve the services of a graduate of a col- 
lege. If a teacher of physics is wanted, it must be 
somebody who knows all about physics — logic and 
metaphysics will not do. The candidate for any 
position as teacher must know his one subject bet- 
ter than any other. And he must know not only 
the subject, but how to teach it. He must have spe- 
cial training for this. 

The value of special training for teaching is now 
thoroughly appreciated by teachers and school boards 
alike. It is no longer thought that experience and 
age are disqualifications for teaching. There is, 
therefore, a stability and permanence to the work 
once unknown, so that no really accomplished teacher 
need fear the loss of employment by reason of advanc- 
ing age alone, but may confidently rely upon hav- 
ing full work so long as the intellectual powers are 
unimpaired, and interest in the work of teaching is 
unabated. True, one must keep up with the spirit 
of the age, and learn the new methods, and be young 
in everything but years and judgment, in order to 
make sure of this. But that is easy enough. The 



OF EDUCATED MEN 153 

vital fact is that not merely here and there a man 
or a woman as in the past can be a teacher all their 
life, but large numbers of men and women can be 
sure of lifelong employment as teachers if they will 
have it; and it would be the greatest possible bless- 
ing to our schools all over the country if large num- 
bers of the graduates of colleges would devote their 
lives to teaching, thus at once relieving the pressure 
for work in the professions, and taking the places in 
schools of those who are not fit for the work, and, 
as a consequence, improving the education given by 
the schools. There are, of course, teachers enough 
already; but there are not enough competent teach- 
ers. With the development of the system of pedagogy 
it is inevitable that a higher standard of knowledge 
as well as of skill shall be set up for teachers, and 
the business, instead of being temporary, must become 
as permanent a profession as any other; and I cer- 
tainly know of no other profession that offers better 
reward for faithful work, even if that reward be less 
in money than some others. Money is not every- 
thing, and it does not profit to gain the whole world 
and lose oneself any more now than it did nineteen 
centuries ago ; and where a man devotes his life to the 
pursuit of money alone, he generally does lose himself. 
Second: Business. A new order of business has 
come into the world, and it looks as if it had come 
to stay. It involves combinations, retrenchment of 
expenses in production, the systematic creation and 
preservation of markets, a view of the whole world 
at once in its relation to the business to be conducted. 
This business is full of possibilities of good and not 
less full of possibilities of terrible evil. It can be 
a blessing or a curse according as it is managed in 



154 THE DISSEMINATION 

a spirit of generosity or of greed. It can keep the 
wheels of business moving with uninterrupted regu- 
larity, so that labor shall have steady employment, 
and the consumer may satisfy his wants at a reason- 
able price, or it can wreck everything when it pleases, 
ruining both workmen and customers by its gambler- 
like irregularities and its ungodly rapacity. It has 
not yet become greater than the state, more powerful 
than the people ; and, if it is wise, it will never make 
it necessary for the people to put forth their full 
power against it. But so long as it continues with 
its gigantic operations, the men who can success- 
fully manage the vast affairs concerned should be 
men of systematic and special training, and surely 
among these not a few ought to be graduates of our 
colleges. If these men are not competent for such 
work, why not? And if they are competent, what 
better work could they do? "Canst thou draw out 
leviathan with a hook? Canst thou put a hook 
into his nose?" Probably not. But it will come as 
near to putting a hook into the nose of leviathan 
as is possible when these great trusts are managed 
by intelligent, educated, conscientious men. Here, 
then, is a place, a place of danger if you please, a 
place not easy to attain, but a place large enough 
for many men, with duties difficult enough to require 
high intelligence, and college men ought to fill it. 

Third : The mechanic arts. Nowhere is there a 
greater field for intelligence and wisdom than here. 
In no field are there questions to be solved more dif- 
ficult or more important. How to subserve the best 
interests of the workmen as a body and at the same 
time not destroy or impair individual liberty, is a 
question more easily asked than answered, and one 



OF EDUCATED MEN 155 

that neither the trades unions nor the general pub- 
lic have yet been able to answer satisfactorily. It is 
possible for the machine to become as execrable in 
labor politics as in state or city politics, and a few 
thousands of sensible, educated men with a thorough 
knowledge of the principles of mechanics and an hon- 
est desire to do the most good in the world can prob- 
ably accomplish more by imitating the life of the 
Divine Master while he was the carpenter at Naza- 
reth than they could by imitating his later life in 
public ministry and teaching. They could devise wise 
measures for themselves and their fellow workmen 
and doubtless save all concerned from many evils 
into which they are now often plunged by the rash- 
ness or foolishness or ignorance or selfishness of 
leaders. I assume that education broadens a man's 
vision, quickens his intellect, and makes him more 
capable of logical thinking, by which remedies for 
evils may be discovered, the causes of evils be re- 
moved, and better conditions of things in all respects 
be brought about. And I think I may justly assume 
that young men of character and of real nobility 
of purpose, having an education in the essential prin- 
ciples of the mechanic arts, as well as the broader 
culture which makes the man before the mechanic, 
could find a grand field for noble leadership among 
the toilers of the shops without in the least reducing 
the chances of their less educated fellows for work. 
They could add much to the comfort and the efficiency 
of labor. The general condition of labor has been 
wonderfully elevated by inventions. There is not 
the slightest danger that human ingenuity will ever 
interfere with the demand for labor. Just to men- 
tion the word electricity is enough to show how new 



156 THE DISSEMINATION 

ideas expand the world of labor. Men's wants are 
properly multiplied and enlarged by civilization. 
The man with the hoe is superior to the man without 
a hoe. Labor operating machinery of all kinds is 
higher and nobler than labor without machinery. 
Disciplined mind studying natural laws and produc- 
ing machinery capable of constructing fabrics of 
greater fineness or utility than could be made other- 
wise, is contributing powerfully to the happiness of 
both the consumer and the producer, lessening the 
toil of the latter and increasing the pleasure and 
comfort of the former. 

I shall be glad when the graduates of our colleges 
shall be so distributed through all the branches of 
honest industry as to leave not one of them untouched 
by the inspiring presence of knowledge and culture. 

Fourth : Eailroads. Here is an immense advance 
in the kind and quality of work to be done. The 
simplicity and crudeness of the early railroads are 
disappearing. Not only in the equipment and man- 
agement of individual railroads has great progress 
been made, but combinations are constantly form- 
ing, systems increase in intricacy, travel and business 
are alike changed from one route to another, and 
the management of the mighty behemoths of the 
land requires a higher class of talent and labor of 
better character than was once supposed to answer 
the purpose. And this process will go on. Here 
ought to be a large field for men who are educated, 
a field in which, for I am inquiring for no other, 
men can do royal service to the world. If the rail- 
roads of the country shall come to be managed in 
all departments by men of the highest character, 
knowledge, and ability, they will give to the public 



OF EDUCATED MEN 157 

the strongest assurance of safety in travel and to the 
business world the best guarantee of faithful and 
effective service whenever needed. The higher edu- 
cation ought to reach and affect the great question 
of transportation on land or water, in all its rami- 
fications, involving rates, long and short hauls, local 
conditions and needs, securing by the faithful appli- 
cation of scientific principles that essential justice 
to all, which Interstate Commerce Commissions, and 
State Eailroad Commissions, and, in some states, a 
helpless people, dependent upon the mercy of the rail- 
road for life, are, not with entire success, groping for 
at the present time. 

Fifth : Journalism and literature offer an im- 
mense field for college graduates who will deliber- 
ately and carefully fit themselves for this work and 
resolutely adhere to it. The multiplication of news- 
papers in the last forty years has been almost beyond 
calculation. The newspaper, when properly con- 
ducted, is a power for good. No man can be too 
great for the position of editor. The editor addresses 
every day or every week, as the case may be, a lar- 
ger audience than any that listens to the most elo- 
quent speaker. His words do not perish with their 
utterance but are in permanent form, to be read 
and read again, if they are worth it. His influence, 
if he is a man of ability and of principle, will be 
more commanding than it would be if he were in 
any other occupation. No man has a chance to do 
so much for patriotism, good government, public 
and private virtue, and general progress as he. The 
position is large and commanding. It needs a man 
of ability, culture, knowledge, and high motives to 
fill it. There are thousands of places where gradu- 



158 THE DISSEMINATION 

ates of colleges might be and ought to be in editorial 
chairs, doing some good in the world, instead of starv- 
ing to death in competition with overfilled profes- 
sions. 

Literature, too, in its higher sense ought to engage 
the attention and be the life-work of larger numbers 
of educated men. Not so safe and sure an occupa- 
tion, because demanding higher powers, and powers 
of a particular kind, and because poetry and fiction 
and history must all be very good to constitute a 
safe reliance for support, it is not to be entered into 
by the commonplace and sluggish mind. But the 
demand for a living literature of to-day is so impera- 
tive and it comes from so many millions of reading 
and thinking people, that I can not but believe that 
there is room here in this field of literature for 
many of our brightest college men, if they can have 
the patience and the nerve to wait till their best 
and noblest thoughts shall have ripened for the 
world. 

Sixth : Agriculture. The time has been when it 
was supposed that anybody could be a farmer. So 
he can, but not a successful farmer. Agriculture, like 
other occupations, is advancing in character. The 
successful farmer must understand soils, and fer- 
tilizers, and methods of culture, and rotation of crops, 
and breeds and types of cattle, fruits and grains 
and grasses, methods of dairying, and a multitude of 
other things for which only a special scientific edu- 
cation with reference to agriculture can thoroughly 
prepare. The successful farmer is not the gentle- 
man who looks on while others do the work, and who 
puts into his land a great deal more money than he 
ever takes out. He is the man who practices farm- 



OF EDUCATED MEN 159 

ing as a profession, just as the lawyer practices law; 
who makes his living and accumulates property by 
means of his farm; who makes experiments not at 
random and foolishly but rationally under the guid- 
ance of scientific knowledge; who not only makes a 
success of his own business, reaping good harvests 
from all that he sows, but who is a light and an 
inspiration to his agricultural brethren, wise in coun- 
sel, intelligent in instruction, and enthusiastic in plan- 
ning and leading. He is independent, self-reliant, hon- 
est, guileless, and helpful, because he is under no 
constraint to be otherwise, and his life with nature 
makes him so. The problems he has to solve and the 
experiments to make are certainly as interesting 
and important as those which belong to any other 
profession, and in no other profession is an exact 
knowledge of the laws of plant and animal life more 
serviceable. Thinking has already transformed a 
multitude of farmers and made them in their sci- 
entific study of their work fairly entitled to be called 
professional; and education, specialized as clearly 
and definitely for agriculture as are the studies for 
other professions, must do the rest. I see before me 
in the coming years a mighty change all over the hills 
and the prairies of our land, when education and 
enterprise shall on every farm take the place of ig- 
norance and stolid routine, just as with every ad- 
vancing wave of prosperity and knowledge, the com- 
fortable, cheerful home takes the place of the cabin 
or the hut, and the all-sheltering barns take the place 
of stacks, stables, hovels, and rookeries. A free peo- 
ple, living on their own land, with abundance burst- 
ing from the earth every year, with science and litera- 
ture and culture at their command for themselves 



160 THE DISSEMINATION 

and for their children — was ever a life pictured by 
poet that was sweeter than this? And why should 
not very many of our graduates enjoy this life and 
bless their fellow workers with all the knowledge 
and the culture that the universities have given them? 
Why should we think of an educated man who leads 
a life of noble independence and usefulness on a 
farm amid the delightful and health-giving works of 
nature as throwing away or wasting his life, and 
think of the lawyer shut up in the city office and 
wearing out his soul waiting for a client as making 
the most of himself? No wonder with such false 
notions of life prevalent everywhere that there is no 
proper distribution of educated men, but a great 
dearth of them where they are most needed, and con- 
gestion everywhere else. 

And let me say one thing more. Heretofore in 
our career as a nation our senators and representa- 
tives have been more frequently lawj^ers than mem- 
bers of any other profession. There have been good 
reasons for this. But the day is coming when the 
necessity for choosing lawyers so generally will pass 
away. The elevation of the farmers in character, 
intellect, and power will make it possible to find 
among them the noblest kind of men for public life, 
men whose personal integrity, genuine interest in 
their constituents, and fidelity to everything which 
will promote the welfare of the people, will make 
them at once the safest and the most influential of 
representatives; and they will be what they are, not 
because they are farmers, but because in spite of 
being farmers they are the peers of the lawyer in 
mental power and training, while having at the same 
time a larger vision of what the country needs. Many 



OF EDUCATED MEN 161 

a young man goes into law mainly as a stepping stone 
to politics and public life. But more and more as 
education advances and educated men are distributed, 
the best trodden paths that lead to the Capital will be 
found to come from the country and the farms. 

It is well for the young men who take the pro- 
fession of law mainly as a means of political advance- 
ment to remember that, while a large percentage of 
senators and congressmen are lawyers, only a very 
small percentage of lawyers are senators and con- 
gressmen, and of these nine-tenths become so in con- 
sequence of popular personal qualities and great read- 
iness of speech rather than on account of their attain- 
ments in law. 

A quarter of a century ago, I knew a little fellow 
in Yale College, the son of a widow in straitened 
circumstances, a bright enough boy, but one whom 
I should never have selected as likely to prove suc- 
cessful as a lawyer. He, however, studied law, and 
in time became an authority in certain subjects affect- 
ing large interests as well as the public welfare. A few 
weeks ago the newspapers announced the fact — I have 
every reason to believe it a fact — that he had recently 
received in a single fee a quarter of a million of dol- 
lars. I have no doubt that the services rendered were 
worth that amount to his clients, and everybody, who 
knows who his clients were, knows that they could 
pay such a fee without suffering. But where one man 
gets a chance to render such service and pocket such 
a fee, there are tens of thousands in the profession 
anxiously seeking for the merest atoms of business 
to provide themselves with the ordinary comforts of 
life. And yet from every quarter and every race and 
every grade of intellectual life, with college training 



162 THE DISSEMINATION 

and without college training, candidates for the law 
are multiplying with the expectation apparently that, 
if they can once be admitted to the bar, they will be 
greater and higher and happier than they ever could 
be if they should follow less ambitious pursuits. I 
would discourage no man's reasonable ambition. 
Least of all would I discourage the really talented 
child of poverty and toil from seeking an occupation 
in which his talents may find room for the most effect- 
ive activity. I remember too well the long line of 
great men headed by Daniel Webster who have come 
from the country home to adorn the highest courts of 
the nation. But comparatively few of those who make 
the attempt succeed; and those who fail might have 
succeeded nobly in something else. Success in any 
reputable employment is better than failure in the 
highest. Better, a thousand times better, to be a 
skillful worker with your hands than to be in the most 
intellectual of the professions without adequate 
brains. The higher education is good, good for every- 
body who can get it, provided men will be willing to 
use it in regions where they can use it effectively 
and not merely use it as stepping stones on which to 
mount into uncongenial and chilling atmospheres. 
The law is an eminently disciplinary and invigorating 
subject, and every man who studies it ought to be a 
stronger man in consequence, whatever may be his 
ultimate occupation. The law as a profession requires 
high natural endowment as well as culture, and these 
make the law pay as they make everything else pay. 
The man who has only ability enough to make a trade 
of the law, ought to keep out of it and do something 
else in which he might excel. It is of course possible 
to so crowd any profession that some really able and 



OF EDUCATED MEN 163 

effective men may not find employment in it. But 
so long as there is work enough to go round, a man's 
failure is the result of some defect in himself. The 
clergyman who can not get a pulpit has something un- 
pleasant in his personality, his rhetoric, or his the- 
ology. 

I have not been trying to point out exactly the 
work which each man shall select as his own. But I 
have been pleading for a wider dissemination of edu- 
cated men in order both that all branches of honor- 
able labor may be energised and ennobled by in- 
creased knowledge in its management, and that the 
traditional professions may not be paralyzed by con- 
gestion. I would have students understand from an 
early day in their work, that they are not merely 
training as one trains in the gymnasium for health; 
but that they are training for something as one trains 
for an athletic contest. The man who, by force of 
will and strength of arms, is to lift himself to a re- 
quired height thirty or forty times, must train him- 
self for that; and the man who is to win in the mile 
race, must train himself for that; and in the final con- 
test the good all round man who has trained himself 
for nothing in particular, will get what he has trained 
for. 

One of the leading papers of our country has re- 
cently commented on the need of trained men in the 
following admirable language : "This is pre-eminently 
the age of the trained man; the untrained man is at 
a great disadvantage in trying to make a place for 
himself or to solve the problem of success. Superior 
education was once regarded as essential to the suc- 
cess of the artist and the professional man, but it was 
assumed that natural sagacity and alertness were 



164 THE DISSEMINATION 

sufficient capital for the business man. Under the 
conditions of modern life and the growing pressure 
of competition, it is now seen that special training is 
as necessary for the man of affairs as for the man 
of letters, law, or theology; and that the uneducated 
business man — the man, that is, who is not specially 
trained in his own field of enterprise — is a man 
doomed to failure. This truth, which is being rapidly 
recognized in this country, has long been recognized 
abroad. The partnership of the German university 
and the German manufactory, which has been accom- 
plished in the last decade, has seriously menaced the 
supremacy of England and has led to the establish- 
ment in that country of schools for the training of 
business men along scientific lines. 

"The United States has already entered upon more 
intimate relations with the other nations, and, as 
time goes on, these relations will grow more and more 
intimate. Whatever form American expansion may 
take, it is certain that there will be the spread of the 
American spirit and the wide enlargement of Amer- 
ican activity and influence. We are to stand face 
to face in the great field of the modern world with 
the trained men of other countries. Our chances of 
success will be small, if we depend upon American 
sagacity and alertness alone; we must carry into the 
foreign field the same special training, the same de- 
gree of expert skill, which are carried there by the 
German, the Englishman, and the Frenchman. 

"It will be impossible for the United States to do 
its work in the world unless it is willing to train its 
citizens for that work. The day of haphazard, happy- 
go-lucky, adventurous fortune seeking is over. We 
want as little of this spirit as possible in the far East ; 



OF EDUCATED MEN 165 

we want no untrained officials at any point. Both 
the government and the business of the country must 
be represented by men schooled in affairs and able 
to understand the people with whom they deal." 

All this is very far from being what has been; 
but it certainly is what must be, if we would prosper 
in the business of the world. 

Here in our own hemisphere are the numerous 
countries of South America, whose business relations 
ought to be most intimate with this country. As a 
matter of fact I am told that the business of South 
America as conducted in the principal cities is to-day 
largely in the hands of Germans, and that the Eng- 
lish trade officials are constantly sending home com- 
plaints and warnings in reference to German prog- 
ress in grasping trade. And there is no doubt that 
within the last six years Germany has gained con- 
trol of a much larger part of the world's trade than 
ever before, so that it does not require a prophet to 
foresee that both England and the United States are 
to experience much discomfort in the coming years 
from German competition. A good deal of this is 
explained by the "partnership of the university and 
the manufactory," referred to a few minutes ago. 
The German officials are trained for the very work 
they are expected to do. A German consul under- 
stands both the language and the business of the 
country in which he serves. He can tell what its de- 
mands are in the way of trade, what is the possibility 
of increased markets, and how it can be realized. We 
have been sending abroad as consuls for a long time 
local politicians, sent abroad not on account of their 
ability to render service to the country, but in pay- 
ment of services already rendered in carrying cau- 



166 THE DISSEMINATION 

cuses or elections for some higher politician; men 
ignorant alike of the language and the business of 
the country to which they go, and almost as ignorant 
of the resources and capabilities of their own country 
— though I am glad to say that in the last few years 
some very efficient service to our trade has been ren- 
dered by American consuls. But we must take no 
risks. Men must go abroad who are fit to do the 
work abroad, and no others should on any account, 
by any party, be sent. Unless this rule is adhered to 
in the future far more than it ever has been, we are 
sure to go down in the industrial contest with such a 
country as Germany, if not at once, at least as soon 
as certain natural advantages which we enjoy at pres- 
ent shall have passed away, and the competition 
shall be on such a footing as will insure that the best 
men shall win. I can not but think that in this mat- 
ter, as in all the others that relate to the bearing of 
education upon national success, the colleges and 
universities of our country have a grave responsibil- 
ity, and that they ought most seriously to consider 
how they can render the best possible service in fit- 
ting men for the great variety of duties needed to be 
performed, and, in this way, insure the widest and 
the wisest dissemination of educated men, thus con- 
tributing effectually to the industrial production of 
the country and to the demand for the products of the 
country, in a word equalizing supply and demand 
while enlarging both. That will always bring pros- 
perity. And prosperity is what the country wants, 
a prosperity that is not accidental, but that results 
from a wise application of the industrial forces of 
the country to the production of what is needed. No 
position can be more honorable or more helpful in 



OF EDUCATED MEN 167 

producing prosperity than what Carlyle calls cap- 
tains of labor. And it is quite possible, as it is emi- 
nently desirable, for many of our educated men to 
become captains of labor; but they must be trained 
for this and to some extent the proper training can 
be gained only by specializing. While one man in a 
thousand among college graduates may be fitted by 
the culture and discipline process of education to 
formulate general principles affecting the industry 
and prosperity of the country, ten times that number 
can be trained to put those principles into success- 
ful operation so as to enlarge the industry and open 
new fields of labor to multitudes of people who have 
neither had training nor have now the power to do 
more than work under trained direction. The re- 
sources of our country are almost unlimited, and the 
possibility of controlling the most desirable indus- 
tries as well as the commerce of the world in the near 
future is so great as to amount almost to a certainty, 
if we will only train our students for the work that 
is to be done; but it will never be if we train our stu- 
dents only to be lawyers and doctors and ministers 
and stump speakers. That did well enough perhaps 
fifty years ago, when other countries were doing the 
same, and trade competition had not reached the gi- 
gantic proportions which to-day make it a world 
problem and not a mere local problem as it was. But 
it will not do in the coming years. We must train 
not merely leaders of thought, but leaders of action, 
men who can discover and explain principles and no 
less men who can put principles into concrete effect- 
iveness. We do not want our work to be all Carlyle nor 
all Macau lay. We do not want to underestimate the 
spiritual side of man's nature, but we must not for- 

12— 



168 THE DISSEMINATION 

get the tremendous importance of the never-ending 
round of labor which the hundreds of millions of the 
human race for weal or for woe are, by the eternal 
laws of existence, compelled to tread. If the higher 
education can do anything to mitigate the sufferings 
and increase the joys of these millions, it should not 
neglect so grand an opportunity, so high a mission. 
And I know of no way in which it can discharge its 
duty in this respect more effectively than by saying 
to its scholars, for whom it has done its best, just 
what Jesus Christ said to his disciples before leaving 
them, "Go ye into all the world and preach the good 
news; teaching them what I have taught you." 

I have spoken to-day of a class, educated men. 
Not that I care more for them than for others, but 
because the occasion seemed to make this the proper 
topic. I certainly feel the deepest interest in the wel- 
fare of all classes, and in none a deeper interest than 
in the very poor and illiterate and discouraged from 
whose ranks in these days so many courageous young 
men and women are coming to swell the ranks of the 
educated. And yet the educated men are not a class. 
They come from every grade of society and from 
every nationality. In Minnesota, at least, they come 
from the families of the poor far more than from the 
families of the rich. I have spoken in the interest of 
all classes ; for whatever tends to elevate labor, to give 
it a nobler character, to put more intellect into it, and 
to give it greater success, tends to benefit everybody 
who works. Let us remember that we are one people 
with common interests, with a common destiny, I be- 
lieve, a glorious destiny. Let us not be so selfish as to 
forget our neighbor, nor so dull as not to know who 
is our neighbor. Rather let us try to love our neigh- 



OF EDUCATED MEN 169 

bor as ourselves; and so plan our own work as not 
only to secure success for ourselves, but also to avoid 
interfering with the welfare of our neighbor. Let us 
place the best things highest, and so let us place coun- 
try above party, the nation above the state, the people 
above ourselves. Let us discuss all questions of pub- 
lic policy, of economic expediency, of industrial util- 
ity, without prejudice or bitterness. Let us do our 
duty faithfully as citizens, and each one of us seek 
that place and that work for which he is best fitted 
and in which he can do the most good. Then shall 
the great republic, founded by Washington and saved 
by Lincoln, be sure of a glorious immortality. 



THE EDUCATION WHICH OUR COUNTRY 
NEEDS * 

I believe that different peoples require different 
education and that the same people may require dif- 
ferent education at different stages of their devel- 
opment. There are peculiar conditions both of pop- 
ulation and of development in this country, which 
justify departures in education from the lines of 
work which may be the most desirable in some other 
countries. I need mention only three. 

First: Our population is not homogeneous. It 
is not changed merely from time to time by the death 
of the fathers and the succession of the children, but, 
on the contrary, it is constantly receiving accessions 
in large numbers from other countries and races, 
and other civilizations. 

Second: Our people are all equal in political 
rights and political power. It is as necessary for 
the day laborer to know what is best for the country 
as it is for the man of any other position. In many 
countries political power is vested in a few, and only 
these few have anything to say as to national policy. 
Practically it makes no difference whatever to them 
whether the millions know anything about political 
science, history, sociology or not. They are simply to 

*Delivered at the Twenty-seventh Annual Commencement of the 
University of Minnesota, June 1st, 18°/9. 



172 THE EDUCATION 

tread in the steps of their fathers, and the king and 
the nobility take care of the state. But with us this 
is all changed. The power is with the people. Leg- 
islation will be determined ultimately by the people. 
If the people are intelligent and wise, there will be 
consistency and continuity in legislation, but if the 
people are not intelligent and wise, they will go like 
an avalanche one year against a McKinley bill, and 
the next year grow frantic to reverse their former 
verdict and shout, "Great is protection and McKin- 
ley is its prophet." 

Third : Our country is not yet fully settled, and 
our population is exceedingly movable. Not only 
is there a regular movement from the old states to 
the new ones, but there is an irregular movement of 
population in all directions, from the West back to 
the East, to the South, to the Southwest, in any di- 
rection if there seems a chance of benefiting one's 
condition. The country has not yet been subdued. 
Comparatively a small area of the country is inhab- 
ited by people among whom can be found three gen- 
erations of the same blood in the same place. Best- 
lessness and change are our present characteristics. 
What we shall do next is uncertain. When a fam- 
ily's destiny is practically settled at birth, you can 
educate them for their work according to established 
rules of training. It is easy to do this in many thick- 
ly settled parts of Europe, where generation after 
generation from father to son the occupations are 
the same. But when, as in this country, the children 
of a family are destined to be scattered, and each 
child may in the course of his life live in a dozen 
states, come in contact with a dozen different grades 
of civilization, and quite probably pursue a dozen 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 173 

different employments, from school-keeping in New 
England to running a cattle ranch in Montana, or 
a fruit ranch in Southern California, the conditions 
are seriously changed, and the problem how to har- 
monize this ever-moving population with its con- 
stantly changing environment and to assimilate it 
with the steady influx of a purely foreign element 
from every nation under heaven, becomes more dif- 
ficult and more discouraging. It is at once seen that 
it is going to take time to make of this mixed mass 
the splendid people that shall ultimately occupy this 
country and live restfully and peacefully with their 
kinsfolk and acquaintance in that part of the coun- 
try in which they have been born, keeping up the 
interests and promoting the works in which their 
fathers before them have been actively engaged. 

The situation, as may be seen, is not an ideal one. 
There is a tremendous waste of force in all direc- 
tions; and not a little of the educational work done 
under these conditions is like the training of the 
sportsman, who, having fired at a calf, supposing it 
to be a deer, and having failed to hit it, explained 
his lack of skill by saying that he fired so as to hit 
it if it were a deer and miss it if it were a calf. Quite 
frequently it is a calf, and perhaps it is fortunate 
that we miss it as often as we do. 

This very hasty sketch of the shifting elements of 
our country suggests the fact that the training of large 
numbers of our people must be and is exceedingly 
superficial. We are an ingenious people, an inventive 
people, a people with wonderful adaptability. But 
there are altogether too many jacks-at-all-trades and 
good at none. Our mechanic arts, our agriculture, our 
business interests of every kind have suffered from 



174 THE EDUCATION 

being undertaken by men with no adequate training 
for their work. The thorough knowledge of his busi- 
ness possessed by the artisan of Germany, would put 
our American artisans to the blush, if they had not 
long got past blushing. The Germans are trained 
for years to do what men in this country will under- 
take to do after acting as a helper for a few weeks. 
This results from our freedom which lets men do 
whatever they think they can do, whether they are 
qualified for it or not. As for spending years to learn 
a trade or a business, when one can get just as good 
wages if he has merely learned a smattering of the 
business, the American is not such a fool as to do 
that. In brief, our whole system of industry is waste- 
ful. Work that should be done once for all, is done 
over a dozen times because never done as it ought 
to be, and as it would be if every man in every occu- 
pation were not so free, but were required to know 
thoroughly the trade or profession which he under- 
takes to follow. 

There is to-day a demand for educated men in a 
multitude of occupations that formerly had no exist- 
ence or were conducted by uneducated men. The 
whole world of labor is to be engaged in the applica- 
tion of scientific principles to mechanics or to agri- 
culture, to transportation, to social life or municipal 
life. The haphazard method of doing things by guess 
has got to stop, and the laws of nature are to be ap- 
plied to nearly everything that invites human labor. 
Our education must fit men for all these varied oc- 
cupations, for which, in the olden time, there was no 
call to fit any one. The situation of itself would re- 
quire a revolution in the scope of our educational 
work. 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 175 

Our whole country would be indignant if any one 
should say that we had not made great progress in 
education in the last half century; that our colleges 
and universities were no better than those of fifty 
years ago ; that our schools were not doing larger and 
better work than the schools of former times; and 
that our system of education did not really educate; 
and I think that the indignation of the country at 
such a statement would be just. 

Yet I do not by any means believe that we have 
reached an educational millennium. If any college 
officer or any teacher of a public school contemplates 
with perfect satisfaction the results of the training 
given to the average student, all I have to say is that 
he is easily satisfied. 

For mj'self, I frankly admit that, while guiding 
an educational institution in the best way I can, so 
as to make it most serviceable to the state from which 
it draws its life, and so as to keep it at least from 
being left high and dry on the shore, while the rest 
of the educational world sails proudly on, I am far 
from being certain that we are headed for the right 
port, that we are using the best forces in the best way, 
or that we are likely to be entirely satisfied with the 
results when our voyage is ended. 

But while admitting that our education is not 
perfect, I am far from thinking that most of the evils 
in our country are to be charged to defects in our 
educational system. They are evils which would ex- 
ist under our present conditions no matter what 
might be our theory or plan of education, but they 
are also evils which I am sure our educational work, 
faithfully continued, will remove. 

It has been customary to divide literature into 



176 THE EDUCATION 

two kinds : The literature of knowledge and the lit- 
erature of power. I would divide education in the 
same way. Everyone who knows anything about the 
matter, will admit that, in respect to the amount of 
knowledge imparted, our institutions of learning are 
incomparably superior to those of former times. The 
sciences are practically the product of the present 
century, and the thorough and systematic teaching of 
the sciences has been possible but little more than a 
generation. History and literature were never taught 
as they are to-day until comparatively a few years 
ago. Other branches of learning might be named of 
which the same could be said. The student, when he 
completes his college course now, knows a great deal 
more certainly than the graduate knew fifty years 
ago. But how is it in respect to power, in respect to 
real intellectual vigor and the ability to impress oth- 
ers with his ideas and to guide the thought of the 
age. James T. Field, the great publisher, the friend 
of authors and scholars and no mean author and 
scholar himself, said some years ago, that no man 
of very marked power had graduated from any of 
the colleges of the country since 1855. All the emi- 
nent American authors like Emerson, Hawthorne, 
Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes, preceded this dead 
line of 1855. Yale College has the honor to have three 
of its graduates at the present time on the bench of 
the Supreme Court of the United States. They have 
all been appointed in recent years, and they were 
all worthy of appointment; but they were all in col- 
lege before 1855, and the latest to graduate was in 
1856. 

The Venezuela Commission, appointed by Presi- 
dent Cleveland, was composed of five distinguished 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 177 

citizens, three of whom are graduates of Yale Col- 
lege, Gilman, White, and Brewer; all three were in 
college before 1855. Was Mr. Field's dictum correct, 
that the age of developed power in colleges ended, so 
far as appears, in 1855? 

Even if the dictum were true, it need not fill us 
with alarm. What Mr. Field especially lamented, 
I suppose, was the disappearance of the creative pow- 
er as represented in oratory, poetry, and prose litera- 
ture. But men write and think as clearly now as 
they ever did. The country needs to-day a good many 
things more than it needs a great poet. I say it even 
at the risk of being called a Philistine. What this 
age needs is knowledge. What this age wants to use 
for its own advancement to the highest civilization 
is knowledge. What this age, therefore, is trying to 
get is knowledge, — knowledge not for a favored class, 
but for the world — every important fact and prin- 
ciple discovered to be used for the good of the race. 

It is not, therefore, necessarily discouraging if we 
are compelled to admit that, in our efforts to broaden 
the field of study and to satisfy the very general de- 
mand of the age for a more practical education, there 
seems to have been a certain loss of power to the in- 
dividual student. It is more in the seeming than in 
reality; more in the method of its application than 
in the power itself, and it does not by any means fol- 
low that there is in the aggregate a loss to the com- 
munity. 

Modern scholarship, despite its tendency to spe- 
cializing, is no longer a deep and narrow stream 
sweeping everything before it in its well-worn chan- 
nel; it is rather a countless number of streams ever 
dividing into new and smaller ones, and ever seek- 



178 THE EDUCATION 

ing for themselves new channels, and these streams, 
though they may show little power, are, nevertheless, 
forever and unceasingly irrigating and fructifying 
broad territories that would otherwise be barren and 
unfruitful. 

The irrigating ditches that can make a sage brush 
desert bear abundantly orange and lemon, prune and 
apricot, grape and olive, are not as suggestive of pow- 
er as the noisy stream, whose falling waters turn the 
wheels of a great mill, but they are not less benefi- 
cent in their work, and their power, judged by results, 
is not less. That inexplicable power which lifts the 
sap from the roots and forces every branch and twig 
to bud and blossom until all nature is clothed in the 
garments of spring, is a silent force whose movements 
are unheard, but whose effect in transforming the 
world of nature, all the hurricanes in the universe 
can not equal. Power and noise are not s3nionymons 
terms. 

You remember that the seven liberal studies which 
the scholastics of the Middle Ages called the trivium 
and the quadrivium, were grammar, logic, and rhet- 
oric, the triple way to eloquence; and arithmetic, 
astronomy, geometry, and music, the quadrivial way 
to whatever else in culture was deemed desirable. We 
have not abandoned a single one of these studies, 
but we have added a great variety of other studies 
which the present age requires. Every student must 
choose as wisely as he can what will contribute most 
to his own success in life. 

When an institution provides instruction in every 
department that can reasonably be desired, there is 
no antagonism created between the old education and 
the new. Both are provided, you take your choice, 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 179 

the refreshments are served on the European plan. 
If you want to attain to eloquence, the old path is 
open to you with the footmarks of many generations 
still visible. On the other hand, in every well en- 
dowed university to-day, the single subject of biology, 
animal and plant life, is so broadly and minutely 
studied, that it might easily occupy the undivided 
attention of the student for the whole four years of 
college life, and the student might graduate an ac- 
curate observer of nature, a master of the scientific 
method of investigation, but with no knowledge of the 
principles of eloquence, and no power in its practice. 
Here, doubtless, would be a loss, not indeed without 
great gain, but a loss, if eloquence is to be regarded 
as the chief end of education. But the world for 
half a century has ceased to regard eloquence as the 
chief thing to be desired even in a statesman, and 
much less in a scholar. Chatham and Burke no long- 
er thunder in the British Parliament, but men in 
Parliament to-day discuss the budget and home rule 
as practical questions very much as they would dis- 
cuss the value of different breeds of cattle, or of ro- 
tation of crops. Facts have taken the place of tropes, 
and common sense fills up the void created by the de- 
parture of Greek and Latin quotations. The rhet- 
orician is at a discount even in Congress. The man 
who can tell all about the effect of taking the tariff 
off wool and putting tariff on hides, of making lumber 
free and of putting a duty on coal, who can lay down 
any one principle of finance which will be accepted as 
true by both the gold and silver men of the country, he 
is the man for the times, while the eloquent declaimer 
on the abstract rights and wrongs of capital and la- 
bor, is of little account. Legislation is no longer a 



180 THE EDUCATION 

matter of feeling and emotion. It is a practical mat- 
ter coming home to men's business and bosoms, and 
to be decided largely by evidence gathered by the pa- 
tient student of statistics in the field of political sci- 
ence. 

Edward Everett spoke two hours at Gettysburg 
— a pellucid stream of classical eloquence — and not 
fifty men in the country to-day either know or care 
what he said. Abraham Lincoln followed Everett 
with a speech of three minutes, a plain statement of 
facts appealing to the highest patriotism, and to-day 
thousands of Americans, from the child in school to 
the old man in the chimney corner, can tell what he 
said. The world has ceased to care much for mere 
words, however choice and elegant. 

Mr. E. L. Godkin some time ago uttered a pro- 
longed wail over the disappearance from Congress and 
the state legislatures of men prominent for elo- 
quence, character, or the weight of their opinions. 
He said: "It is no exaggeration to say that there 
is hardly one left in the political world, who is lis- 
tened to for doctrine or instruction on any great pub- 
lic question. There are in Congress no orators, no 
financiers or economists, no scholars whom people like 
to hear from before making up their minds, no Clays, 
no Websters, no Calhouns, no Wrights, no Marcys, 
no Everetts, no Sewards, no Lincolns, no Fessendens, 
no Trumbulls, no Sumners, no 'illustrations,' as the 
French call them, in any field. The talent of the coun- 
try, in fact, seems to have taken refuge in the great 
business corporations, and in the colleges, just as 
in the Middle Ages it took refuge in the monasteries." 

All of which deplorable condition of affairs, Mr. 
Godkin ascribed to the tariff. It is at least pleasant 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 181 

for us to know that the colleges are not responsible 
for it, and that the talent which the country needs has 
taken refuge in the colleges, waiting doubtless for the 
country's call. 

Grant that the old time eloquence is no longer 
heard, that Webster and Clay will never speak to us 
again. Is the loss irreparable? Are we not gaining 
in other directions enough to compensate? Paradoxic- 
al as it may seem, the world is larger to-day than ever 
before, and yet all its parts are nearer to one another 
than ever before. The questions to be settled to-day 
are more difficult and more important than those of 
the past, because they are more complicated, and they 
affect the welfare of all mankind and not merely a 
particular class or coterie. And these questions need 
for their solution the patient study of the scientific 
student of politics and biology rather than the glow- 
ing appeals of the emotional orator. Indeed, I can 
•not help feeling that we are entering upon a period 
of educational training which may not unfitly be con- 
trasted with that of even fifty years ago, very much 
as Macaulay contrasted the Baconian philosophy with 
the old philosophy. You remember what he said: 
"Words, and more words, and nothing but words, 
had been all the fruit of all the toil of all the most 
renowned sages of sixty generations." 

A thousand years had passed since Socrates taught. 
During all that time a large proportion of the ablest 
men of every generation had been employed in con- 
stant efforts to bring to perfection the old philosophy ; 
and what profitable truth had been discovered which 
we should not equally have known without it? 

Now ask what the Baconian philosophy has ef- 
fected. The answer is ready, and in the answer I 



182 THE EDUCATION 

am sure you will uote the signs by which our modern 
education is and is to be distinguished. 

"It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; 
it has extinguished disease; it has increased the fer- 
tility of the soil; it has given new securities to the 
mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; 
it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges 
of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the 
thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has 
lighted up the night with the splendor of the day; 
it has extended the range of the human vision ; it has 
multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has 
accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it 
has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friend- 
ly offices and dispatch of business ; it has enabled man 
to descend to the depths of the sea; to soar into the 
air; to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses 
of the earth; to travel the land in cars which whirl 
along without horses, and the ocean in ships which 
run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are 
but a part of its fruits and of its first fruits. For it 
is a philosophy which never rests, which has never 
attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. 
A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal 
to-day and will be its starting post to-morrow." 

Macaulay died in 1859. If he had lived till now 
what a mighty addition to this catalogue of the 
achievements of modern learning he might make, as 
he noted the progress in natural and physical sci- 
ence, in engineering, in surgery, in agriculture, in 
stock breeding, in locomotion, and in that most mys- 
terious of forces, electricity. 

Macaulay's catalogue of the achievements of mod- 
ern learning is inspiring. It shows what man has 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 183 

done. But it does not touch the question as to what 
man is to be. Is he to be sweet or bitter in his tem- 
per? Is he to be refined or coarse, a gentleman or 
a boor, a Gladstone or a Gradgrind, in sympathy or 
out of sympathy with mankind, a glad listener to 
the voices of love, and beauty, and harmony, and art, 
and nature which is the art of God, or insensible 
to everything which his eye can not see nor his hand 
handle. 

We must not neglect the culture which will de- 
termine which of these the student is to be, while we 
grow wild over studies which may determine what the 
student shall be able to do. There is still left in the 
world a divine sense of beauty and poetry as contrib- 
uting to something in man to which bread and butter 
do not contribute. We want to make human life 
comfortable. We want to save men, if possible, from 
hunger and cold and misery. But we do not want 
to reduce universal human existence to a dead level 
of mere comfortable animal life. As Lear well says : 
"Allow not nature more than nature needs; man's 
life is cheap as beast's." 

There is something to man besides body. The 
mind, the soul, is itself to be cultivated. Taste is to 
be refined and gratified. Music, art, literature, none 
of these do for man what food does, but they create 
and direct far-reaching longings, aspirations, apti- 
tudes, they contribute to his growth and perfection 
and happiness, and they must never be excluded from 
our system of education as things not needed. Old 
Homer with his divine epic, and his words that echo 
the voices of nature in the most entrancing way, is as 
refining in his influence as ever; the Greek tragedies 
are as grand as ever, Virgil is as delightful, Shakes- 

—13 



184 THE EDUCATION 

peare is as thousand-souled. All of these, if permitted 
to do their legitimate work for the student, will do for 
him something that the mere education of knowledge 
can not do. 

The glory of our modern education is its adapta- 
tion to the wants at once of the race and of the indi- 
vidual. It provides for both the material and spirit- 
ual wants of the student. It does not reject poetry 
and literature because chemistry and physics are more 
important; nor does it reject science because litera- 
ture gives a different kind of culture or a better cul- 
ture. It furnishes whatever will help man to do the 
best work, and also whatever will help him to be the 
best man. And that is just what is needed. This provi- 
sion for both culture and knowledge is to-day the most 
marked feature of university life in this country. Har- 
vard has in some respects taken the lead; Johns 
Hopkins was the pioneer and the other universities, 
willingly or unwillingly, have followed. Even ven- 
erable old Oxford, where tradition has so long been 
law, has now, according to a recent writer, fallen into 
the hands of the specialists — has, as a grumbling 
writer says, substituted for the old idea of a liberal 
education, a multitude of narrow and technical 
schools, for cramming the memory and starving the 
intellect. "The old education may have been defect- 
ive," adds this writer, "but at least it was an edu- 
cation and not an apprenticeship." 

In all of our universities to-day, a student if he 
wishes an education can still get it; or, if he wishes 
what this writer calls an apprenticeship, he can get 
that. That is the best education which fits a man 
for the greatest usefulness. No man is likely to be 
verv useful who does not observe accurately and 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 185 

reason correctly, however much he may know. The 
man who can not draw just conclusions for his own 
guidance is not likely to be a safe guide for others in 
any field of complex human activity. Whatever dis- 
cipline to the intellect can possibly be given should 
be given, whether the intellect is to be applied to 
creating, inventing, adapting, using matter; or in- 
spiring, invigorating, or leading mind. In either 
case utility is the controlling consideration. Very 
few men can afford to use their brains merely as an 
object lesson of what discipline can accomplish, or 
as an attic for the storage of antiquated furniture. 
Most men must use what they get, be it culture or 
knowledge. They must, therefore, get what they can 
use. No doubt a plumber who can read Latin and 
Greek would be a very pleasant gentleman; but the 
plumber who can not read Latin and Greek will an- 
swer our purpose very well, if he will keep our water 
pipes from bursting, our gas pipes from leaking, 
our sewage from setting back into our laundry tubs, 
and the family from dying in consequence of un- 
sanitary conditions produced by himself. If we can 
not have both culture and mechanical skill in our 
plumber, let us by all means have that which is es- 
sential to his doing well the one thing which he pro- 
poses to do. The same thought applies to the whole 
body of engineers and students in technical schools. 
If they are to be masters of their technical work, they 
must forego to some extent general culture, as the 
classical student for culture foregoes the world of 
practical science. The most important and funda- 
mental rule of education is not to leave out, whether 
in foundation or in structure, the one thing neces- 
sary to fit us for what we propose to do. And the 



186 THE EDUCATION 

most important rule for educational institutions is 
the corollary of this : Make it possible for every stu- 
dent to get what is necessary for the best foundation 
at least in his future work. But the subject which 
the student in college needs especially to pursue is 
not necessarily that which appears to be most close- 
ly related to his future work. I have no doubt that 
chemistry and botany and mechanics are much more 
important to a farmer than Latin and Greek and 
German are. But that does not settle the question 
as to what the boy who is to be a farmer ought to 
study when he goes to college. Undoubtedly plowing 
and harvesting and threshing are more essential to 
a farmer's success than reading, writing, and arith- 
metic. But the boy who is to be a farmer will nev- 
ertheless do well to learn reading, writing, and arith- 
metic when he goes to school. And it is by no means 
certain that he will not do well to learn Latin, Greek, 
and German when he goes to college. For this farm- 
er's boy is to be not merely a farmer, but a citizen, 
a man among men. His voice is to be potent, not 
merely in the agricultural convention, but in the po- 
litical, the educational, the scientific, the religious con- 
vention as well. He is to be an important, he may 
be a controlling, influence in the state. For this 
high position of honorable and influential citizenship, 
he is to be trained not less than for his work on 
the farm. 

The specializing, which is the undoubted charac- 
teristic of our present education, must not be car- 
ried too far. An educated man should understand 
his business, but he should also know something be- 
sides his business. Impress a boy with the idea that 
he is to be a clergyman, and that everything he studies 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 187 

must contribute directly to his success in the pulpit, 
and he may possibly become a very effective preacher, 
but he will be a very narrow man. He will reach 
people only at long range. At close quarters his lack, 
both of knowledge and interest respecting his people's 
work, will be painfully apparent. And so of any 
other occupation of responsibility. A speech is ef- 
fective when there is a man back of it. So with 
scholars in all pursuits. They must be real men 
or, if you please, real women, their manhood or 
womanhood supporting their scholarship, not depend- 
ing on it. And this brings us again to the axiom 
of the old education that discipline is the first essen- 
tial of education, that the man is to be developed 
before the specialist, and that the power to investi- 
gate and widely discriminate and judge, must be 
secured before profitable original investigation can 
be carried on. And the only real question involved 
is as to the method needed for the development of 
the faculties to the greatest efficiency, whether or 
not it shall be a method by which both culture and 
knowledge shall be secured at once. 

The old education confessedly did discipline the 
mind, but it imparted little useful knowledge. The 
tendency of much of the new education is to impart 
knowledge without contributing in a marked degree 
to mental discipline, or, if you please, without se- 
curing that much abused, but exceedingly valuable 
thing, culture. For it is this which after all is to 
be the charm of the scholar, whether he be statesman, 
professor, or artisan. It is this for which our sec- 
ondary schools ought to prepare, and of which our 
higher education ought still to be mindful. But the 
needs of the j>resent age can never be met by culture 



188 THE EDUCATION 

alone. Into the broad and ever expanding fields of 
knowledge the cultured scholar must be guided, and 
from these fields he must not be permitted to with- 
draw till he has learned something of what they con- 
tain, and, still better, has learned the wisest method 
of exploring the entire fields so far as his needs may 
require. 

It must be a gratification to every friend of learn- 
ing, that in the laboratories of our universities, so 
many bright undergraduates and graduates, so 
many well-trained scholars, are to-day engaged in 
the work of exploring new fields of knowledge. We 
have in this age what we did not have even twenty 
years ago, large numbers of young men who are spe- 
cialists, many of them able to show with very just 
pride their Ph. D. diplomas, received at universities 
abroad or in this country, for special attainments or 
investigations in some one direction; and many of 
these young men are admirably fitted, not only to 
train other young men along the lines which they 
themselves have followed, but also to awaken in others 
an enthusiasm of curiosity as to everything on the 
earth, under the earth, and in the waters of the sea, 
whether it be products of nature, peculiarities of the 
human mind, or unknown natural or social laws 
and forces. 

Under the growing stimulus of this ever engen- 
dered scholarly curiosity, there is being gathered in 
many institutions a mass of facts of every possible 
variety and on almost every conceivable subject, the 
exact purpose and value of some of which it is dif- 
ficult to determine, but all of which will be used by 
somebody, at some time, for some purpose as intel- 
ligible at least as that for which the political scientist 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 189 

gathers his statistics. The psychological laboratories, 
with their curious experiments and their investiga- 
tions of questions profound and trivial alike, are 
the latest examples of this kind of work. All this 
work of investigation and research is exceedingly 
stimulating, and one can hardly believe it possible 
that with so many bright and specially trained young 
doctors of philosophy, not merely pointing but lead- 
ing the way, there should not be a perceptible uplift 
of education, a marked advance in absolute knowl- 
edge and a decided increase of power in the student. 

For the intellectual results of original investi- 
gation are much more positive than those secured by 
memorizing the achievements or discoveries of oth- 
ers. What can possibly make a man more logical 
than a close adherence to the scientific method of 
investigation? What can be more real to a student 
than things as distinguished from words? What 
can be a greater inspiration to the investigator than 
the hope of finding something that will contribute 
to make man really master of the world, not merely 
of the beasts and the birds and the fishes, not merely 
of the soils and the forests and the mines, but of 
all the latent or half-known forces which operate or 
may operate to the injury or benefit of men? 

No doubt there will be a tremendous waste of 
mental force and time and labor expended by this 
increasing army of specially trained young men, who 
are to spend their days in seeing what they can find 
out and in preparing others to imitate their example. 
But that is not to be objected to. The whole sys- 
tem is a kind of intellectual experiment station. 

The work of experimenting never pays directly; 
but without it, progress is impossible. So our en- 



190 THE EDUCATION 

tliusiastic young masters or doctors, who are search- 
ing old records and plowing up ancient documents, 
or who are studiously harnessing mathematics to 
statesmanship, or are dragging the sea for new crea- 
tures, or searching the plains and forests for new 
specimens of fauna or flora, or are subjecting the 
human being to a microscopic examination to discov- 
er new physical, intellectual, or moral microbes, or 
who are taking the new-born babes to the psycholog- 
ical laboratories and watching with eagle eye the 
development of the infant so that the laws of growth 
may be accurately formulated and teachers may learn 
just when and how the growing babes may in future 
be most wisely instructed, — all these working, search- 
ing, keen, thoughtful, earnest students, must even- 
tually do a world of good, and in the process they 
must get a world of good, though as I have intimated 
they will do a vast amount of work that will have no 
perceptible influence upon the future of humanity, 
though in most cases it will enable the young candi- 
date for fame to publish a pamphlet. I certainly 
recognize the value of this experimental work, even 
though much of it may be without definite results. 
Some of it will be of service, and that is the best 
we can hope for in experimental work. It will ex- 
tend the area of knowledge. It will help to make 
man master of the world. And in the meantime edu- 
cation is no longer a teacher with a book cramming 
the pupil. It is rather the pupil under guidance of 
the teacher, investigating and demonstrating truth 
for himself, but still receiving from his teacher in- 
spiration in his work and an impulse towards every- 
thing that is manly and good. For laboratories and 
seminars, invaluable though they are, can never be 



WHICH OUR COUNTRY NEEDS 191 

a substitute for the earnest, helpful, conscientious, 
and enthusiastic teacher. 

It will be readily seen that certain things which 
have been true of education in the past must be equal- 
ly true of education in the future. Let me name a 
few. There is no royal road to learning. Teachers 
must still teach. Scholars must still study. The 
curriculum must embrace those studies which the 
world still agrees to call a classical course. Funda- 
mental discipline must not be overlooked. Culture 
must still be regarded as a most desirable and most 
necessary result of education. The ultimate result 
to be sought is power, but so long as the result is 
power, it does not seriously matter whether it be the 
power of a Webster or the power of an Edison, 
whether it be the power to deal with intellects or 
the power to master the secrets of nature. 

I have insisted on knowledge as an essential but 
not as the only essential of education. There is an 
old idea which the world has cherished that must 
not be giveu up, and that is that the proper outcome 
of educational training, is character and enthusiasm. 
It is not enough that the student work in the lab- 
oratory and find out knowledge of witty inventions. 
The teacher must be to him an inspiration and an 
example. The danger of our present tendency is 
the loss of enthusiasm for everything except dry 
facts, and the absolute dethronement of the imagina- 
tion. x\s a graceful and thoughtful writer has re- 
cently pointed out "there is more inspiration for the 
young in the heroic deeds of men, even if not record- 
ed with all the accuracy of Dr. Dryasdust, than 
there is in the statistics of the Blue Book or the Acts 
of Parliament.''' The rising generation, however fa- 



192 THE EDUCATION 

miliar it may become with nature and things mate- 
rial, must not be so trained as to be unmoved by 
heroism, patriotism, unselfishness, or by grandeur of 
soul or action. 



LESSONS FROM OUR COUNTRY'S HISTORY* 

The Old Testament is largely a history of God's 
dealings with his peculiar people. I think that the 
guiding hand of God is as plainly to be seen in the 
history of our own national life as in that of the 
Hebrews; and that what he has done for us is a 
proper subject for consideration at this hour. More- 
over, it is a part of the work of public education to 
cultivate patriotism in the young; and I know of no 
way in which this can be more effectually done, than 
by setting clearly before them the noble deeds of the 
fathers as manifestly chosen of God for the work they 
were to do as were Abraham, Samuel, and David. It 
is impossible in a single brief address to do more than 
present the barest outline of a few important events 
and to draw from them the lesson of the hour ; but if, 
as a result, the young men and young women to whom 
I speak, shall feel a new enthusiasm for the flag of 
their country, and shall cherish a deeper determina- 
tion than before that the country which brave men 
saved in war, shall not perish through anarchy and 
corruption in time of peace, I shall not have spoken 
in vain. 

The New World having been discovered by Colum- 
bus, sailing under the flag of Spain, it was a provi- 

*Delivered before the graduating class of the University of Min- 
nesota, May 31st, 



194 LESSONS FROM OUR 

dence that saved the best part of the North American 
continent from the dominion of Spain and gave it 
to England instead. As a result, our country was 
colonized by the best people of the world, intelligent, 
moral, freedom-loving, progressive, and patriotic, 
while many of them were imbued with the most ear- 
nest religious sentiment and feeling. The strip of 
country from Maine to Georgia on the Atlantic coast 
was colonized by English, French, Dutch, and 
Swedes, by Protestants and Catholics, by men seek- 
ing religious freedom and men seeking business suc- 
cess, all of them peculiarly independent and energetic. 
The colonies thus formed remained for a century and 
a half under the dominion of England, sharing with 
her the burdens of French and Indian wars, while 
struggling to subdue the forests and establish civiliza- 
tion; and then, after a war of eight years for inde- 
pendence, they established a government of their own 
and became the United States of America. 

It was apparently an accident, but really a provi- 
dence, by which at the close of the ^Revolutionary 
war, our western boundary was made the Mississippi 
Eiver, and not the Allegheny Mountains. It looked 
for a time as if we were to be hemmed in on the south 
by Spain, on the west by Spain or France, on the 
north by Great Britain, and on the east by the navies 
of the Old World, — to be but an inferior power, liable 
at all times to the menace of the more powerful na- 
tions by whose territory we were surrounded, and 
with no possibility of expansion in any direction. It 
was providential events, unforeseen by us, which 
opened the way for the extension of our domain and 
made it possible for- the great republic to reach, as it 
does to-day, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 195 

At the close of the Seven Years' war in 1763, 
France surrendered to Spain by treaty the territory 
west of the Mississippi Kiver called Louisiana. In 
1800 Bonaparte, by treaty with Charles IV of Spain, 
regained possession of this territory including New 
Orleans on the east side of the Mississippi River. In 
1803 there was a prospect of war between France 
and England. Bonaparte, fearing that England, by 
her superior naval force, would gain possession of 
Louisiana, "by a dash of diplomacy," as has been 
said, "as quick and as brilliant as his tactics on the 
field of battle, placed it beyond the reach of British 
power" — beyond the reach of any European power 
fortunately, by selling it to the United States. "1 
know the value of Louisiana," he said. "The English 
wish to take possession of it. They have already 
twenty ships of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. The 
conquest of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a 
moment to lose in putting it out of their reach." And 
he opened negotiations with the American minister 
at once. Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson was presi- 
dent of the United States. He had sent James Mon- 
roe to Paris fully informed as to the President's 
views. Neither Jefferson nor Monroe expected to 
secure this immense territory; but they were both 
wise enough to take it when it was offered. They did 
take it. It cost fifteen million dollars. The country 
thus purchased embraces to-day the states of Louisi- 
ana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, 
Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Colorado north of 
Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, 
and Montana, and the Indian and Oklahoma terri- 
tories. It may be easily seen that but for this pur- 
chase all the other states and territories west of us 



196 LESSONS FROM OUR 

which are now in the Union but were not included 
in Louisiana — Oregon, Washington, California, and 
others with Texas — would not now in any reasonable 
probability be ours, but our western border would 
have continued to be the Mississippi River. Napo- 
leon made up his mind to sell Louisiana, April 10, 
1803. In twenty days negotiations were completed 
and the treaty was signed, and the territory was safe 
from British covetousness for all time, except for a 
few hours, January 8, 1815, when a British army in- 
terviewed for a short time General Andrew Jackson 
at New Orleans, and then concluded to retire. 

I know of no other single event in history brought 
about so simply and swiftly and unexpectedly that 
has had such a far-reaching and mighty influence on 
the development and history of a nation as the pur- 
chase of Louisiana has had on the development and 
history of the United States. It has brought to us 
untold good and untold evil. It has solidified us as 
a nation and has given us safe and certain bounda- 
ries. It has almost torn us into fragments by civil 
war and wasted more treasure than the whole United 
States was worth when Louisiana was purchased, 
and the lives of almost as many vigorous men as the 
whole land then contained. But all honor to the 
men who dared to make the purchase and thus make 
it possible for the United States to become the power 
that she is, at the head of all the nations of the west- 
ern hemisphere and the friend of them all, I hope, — 
respected, if not loved, by the nations of the Old 
World, destined in the coming years, as her people 
shall grow in culture and in all excellencies of char- 
acter, to be a powerful factor in maintaining justice, 
order, and peace, even on the other side of the world. 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 197 

When portions of the territory west of the Missis- 
sippi began to apply for admission to the Union as 
states, a violent controversy arose as to whether they 
should be admitted as slave states. Louisiana ap- 
plied for admission in 1811, and then occurred the 
first agitation in Congress over the admission of a 
slave state. Missouri applied for admission in 1818, 
was kept out of the Union for two years, was then 
admitted as a slave state, and at the same time the 
Missouri Compromise was adopted, in accordance 
with which territory north of 36° 30' was to be free 
and territory south of it was to be slave. The excite- 
ment for the time had been intense and the debates in 
Congress were angry. But with the adoption of the 
Missouri Compromise the agitation ceased, and for 
the next twenty years slavery did not appear as a 
disturbing question in any important political con- 
vention. The agitation began again over the annexa- 
tion of Texas during the administration of John Ty- 
ler. The South wanted Texas for the strengthening of 
the slave power. There was a controversy pending 
at the same time over our northern boundary on the 
Pacific coast. The campaign cry of the dominant 
party in 1844 was 54° 40' or fight. But the South 
cared little for the territory in dispute because it 
would unquestionably be free territory. The South, 
as usual, had its own way. Texas was annexed, 
bringing as its result a war with Mexico. 54° 40' 
was given up in the dispute with England and 49° 
was accepted. Time does much to correct mistakes. 
Texas is now a free state and the United States will 
come to its own again when British Columbia comes 
in of its own choice under the star spangled banner. 

The Mexican war was brought to a glorious end 



198 LESSONS FROM OUR 

by the victories of Taylor and Scott. With an Amer- 
ican army in the capital of Mexico, it was not difficult 
for us to make an advantageous treaty of peace, and 
a large section of Mexican territory, including Cali- 
fornia, Arizona, and New Mexico became the property 
of the United States. Although this territory had 
not been embraced in the Louisiana purchase and, 
therefore, had not been covered by the provisions of 
the Missouri Compromise, the South not unnaturally 
expected that the line of 36° 30' would be run to the 
Pacific Ocean. This would have given New Mexico, 
Arizona, and the southern half of California to slav- 
ery. The population of California at the time was 
favorable to slavery. But man proposes; God dis- 
poses. In 1848 gold was discovered in California, 
and immediately an immense immigration set in from 
the north and east. Men who were able to go 
there went; and men who had no money went as the 
agents of others who furnished money. California 
was transformed. In 1849 a state constitution was 
adopted which prohibited slavery, and California ap- 
plied for admission to the Union as a free state. The 
terrible excitement of 1850 at once arose, convulsing 
Congress and country alike. 

The Senate of the United States in 1850 undoubt- 
edly contained a larger number of really distinguished 
men than ever before or since. At the head of these 
were Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. Some of the other 
names eminent then and not forgotten even now are 
Cass, Douglas, Jefferson Davis, Benton, Foote, Sew- 
ard, Chase, Bell, Crittenden, King, Berrien, Hamlin, 
Hale, Mangum, Badger, Mason, Hunter, Soule, Hous- 
ton, Kusk, and Fremont. These were all men of 
brains, representing the best elements of their several 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 199 

states, and a respectable Senate as Senates now go, 
could have been formed out of other members of the 
Senate whom I have not named. The places of but 
few of these men have been filled by their successors. 

The outcome of the great debates in Congress was 
the adoption of the Omnibus Bill, not as a whole, 
but in detail. California was admitted as a free state. 
Utah and New Mexico were provided with territorial 
governments. The boundary of Texas was adjusted 
and ten millions of dollars paid to Texas as indem- 
nity. The Fugitive Slave Bill was passed and the 
slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished. 
The South had lost what it had wanted most, Califor- 
nia. It had got what it needed least, the Fugitive Slave 
Bill. For the perpetuation of its political power it 
had secured nothing in the present, and it had no 
great prospect of securing anything in the future 
of all the territory which had been acquired by the 
war in Mexico. But all parties agreed that the com- 
promise was final, that the slavery question was 
settled, and the platforms of both Whig and Demo- 
cratic National Conventions in 1852 so declared. 

Barely four years passed away when, by the pas- 
sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854, the Mis- 
souri Compromise of 1820 was annulled, the territory 
north of 36° 30' was opened to slavery and an agita- 
tion, more fierce than had ever been known, was in- 
augurated. Henry Clay had been elected to the Sen- 
ate by the unanimous vote of the legislature of Ken- 
tucky in 1850 because his services were needed for 
the peace of the country. He had successfully carried 
through Congress his compromise measures and had 
restored peace to the country, as men thought. He 
had died June 29, 1852. Of his great contemporaries 



200 LESSONS FROM OUR 

and rivals Calhoun had died two years before, and 
Webster died four months later. The man who intro- 
duced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was Archibald Dix- 
on, of Kentucky, the successor of Henry Clay. He 
undid all that Clay had done for peace and union. 
He lighted a fire to burn up the national agreements 
of 1820, but he kindled a conflagration in which the 
great temple of human slavery, which he sought to 
enlarge, was itself consumed. By the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the territory dedicated to free- 
dom was opened to slavery. Violence and fraud were 
subsequently resorted to in order to make Kansas a 
slave state. Missouri border ruffians, armed with 
pistols and guns, met on the plains of Kansas north- 
ern men armed with Sharp's rifles; old John Brown, 
of Ossawatomie, was there fighting for freedom. 
Against all probabilities of the case, against the po- 
litical influence of the administration, at a time when 
the opposition to the administration was poorly or- 
ganized, Kansas was saved to freedom and the last 
effort of the advocates of slavery to augment their 
political power by increasing the area of slavery had 
failed. A party devoted to the principle that slavery 
should not be extended into the territories, had arisen 
under the stimulus of slavery's last effort, and almost 
carried the country in 1856 under John C. Fremont. 
In 1860 it elected as president, Abraham Lincoln, the 
man who said: "The Union can not exist half slave, 
half free." In the political campaign of 1860 the 
South had chosen defeat rather than possible success 
under Douglas. Their bitterness towards this states- 
man, because he would not submit to all their de- 
mands, probably brought about the election of Lin- 
coln. Douglas died three months after Mr. Lincoln's 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 201 

inauguration and after the Southern Confederacy had 
been formed, but he did not die until he had atoned 
for all that he had done unwisely in the past, not un- 
til he had shown to his countrymen that his heart was 
loyal to the Union. In a letter dictated for publica- 
tion during his last illness, he said that only one 
course was left to patriotic men, and that was to sus- 
tain the Union, the Constitution, the government, and 
the flag, against all assailants. On his death-bed 
his last coherent words expressed an ardent wish for 
the honor and prosperity of his country and the "de- 
feat and dispersion of her enemies." 

The great Civil War had already begun when these 
words were spoken by the dying Douglas. On the 
twelfth day of April, 1861, Fort Sumter had been 
fired on by the Secessionists, and two days later, on 
the fourteenth day of April, its flag was lowered in 
surrender. It was just four years after that on the 
fourteenth of April, 1865, when the same flag was 
again raised over Sumter. What pen can describe the 
events which had taken place in those four years? 
I am speaking to you of time which, to most of you, 
is history, but which, to many of you, is biography. 
If we could have foreseen even then at the last mo- 
ment, the horrible hell of fratricidal strife into which 
we were about to plunge, should we not have drawn 
back and let the South depart in peace? If there 
could have been unrolled before us a vision of what 
was coming; of Bull Kun and Ball's Bluff, of Chan- 
cellorsville and Fredericksburg, of Antietam and 
Gettysburg, of Shiloh and Vicksburg, of Chicka- 
mauga and Missionary Ridge, of the Battles of the 
Wilderness, battlefields of all of them at last covered 
with dead Northern soldiers, sleeping the sleep which 



202 LESSONS FROM OUR 

no wails of bereaved mothers or wives or children in 
Northern homes can waken, and never again to bless 
the eyes that for them shall shed unceasing tears for 
years to come — if such a vision could have been seen, 
would the North have dared to go forward with forti- 
tude and courage for the accomplishment of what we 
now see to have been the sublimest purpose of the 
Almighty for attaining the highest justice? But no 
such vision was vouchsafed. The batteries of Beaure- 
gard fired upon Sumter and the flag was lowered; 
and from that time for four years, the North simply 
followed the flag wherever it was lifted up and wher- 
ever it led. The flag — the stars and stripes — the red, 
white, and blue — emblem of our country, beautiful 
an3 7 where when seen among the emblems of all the 
nations of the world, but nowhere so beautiful as 
when amid danger and death it stands as the symbol 
of the nation's life, of that law and order which 
makes homes sacred, and wives and children safe, 
emblem of the nation's power with all the memories 
of which the past of our country is so full, and of all 
the hopes which make the future of our country so 
glorious, to every patriot, the flag means much; to 
none but the man without a country does the flag 
mean nothing ; but only the soldier knows all that the 
flag means. 

On the first of January, 1861, three months before 
the Civil War began, the army of the United States 
consisted of only 16,000 officers and men; and before 
Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, more than half of this 
force had been surrendered by General Triggs, com- 
manding in Texas, who hastened thus early to show 
himself a traitor. The armies raised for the suppres- 
sion of the rebellion ultimately contained a million 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 203 

men at one time. The government called for 2,759,- 
000 men ; the number furnished was 2,667,000. The 
number of deaths in the army during the Civil War 
was 280,000. Mnety-six thousand officers and men 
were killed in action or died of wounds. One hun- 
dred and eighty-four thousand officers and men died 
from disease or accident. How many died after the 
war as the result of disease contracted in the service, 
no one can tell. But the number must be large. 

How much the war cost in money I do not know. 
The national debt at the close of the war was nearly 
three thousand millions of dollars. If to this, then, 
be added the expenditure by the Confederates, the 
destruction of property, the loss of productive in- 
dustry, it will hardly seem unreasonable if we place 
the total loss to the country at not less than ten thou- 
sand millions of dollars. This is an immense sum of 
money — more than fifteen times the assessed value of 
all Minnesota. Yet large as it is, how little it repre- 
sents in comparison with the anguish and suffering 
in the homes of the land from which men had gone 
forth to battle, the news of whose death might come 
at any hour of the day or night. How the money all 
sinks into insignificance when we think of the men 
who gave up everything, just to fight for the Union ! 
These men for the most part were not conscripts, they 
were volunteers. They offered themselves for the 
service; not because they wished to die; not because 
they did not fear death; but because, fearing death 
and not wishing to die, they were yet willing to die 
rather than to have the Union perish. These men all 
knew what they were fighting for, and it seemed to 
them to be something worth fighting for. They were 
the truest kind of heroes — heroes who thought as well 



204 LESSONS FROM OUR 

as fought. Two men were marching side by side to 
an attack on the enemy. One of these men was fear- 
less and laughing; the other was pale with fright. 
The one taunted the other with being afraid. 
"Afraid," replied the other, "of course I am afraid, 
and if you were half as afraid as I am, you would 
have run long ago." 

Heroism is something more than courage. It is 
courage created by a sense of duty and ennobled by 
service. Grant, in his Memoirs, says that when Sher- 
man started from Atlanta on his march to the sea, he 
had 60,000 as good soldiers as ever trod the earth; 
better than any European soldiers, because they not 
only worked like a machine, but the machine thought. 
It is your thinking soldier who is heroic, who, as he 
marches to death, knows what he is doing and what 
he is doing it for ; knows that he is making the great- 
est possible sacrifice for the greatest possible good for 
which such sacrifice could be made — the salvation of 
his country. He marches on, though he knows the 
almost inevitable result, for duty whispers to him his 
marching orders, and, at the last, service rendered 
glorifies a deed which, if uncalled for, would have 
been the extreme of folly. An intelligent perception 
of danger to be met, of service to be rendered, of duty 
to be done and when 'tis done, well done, makes the 
soldier a hero. 

In every case duty and service consecrate courage 
and make it heroic. The same courage, exhibited un- 
necessarily, would win applause from no one who is 
wise. You stand on the bank at Niagara Falls and 
Avatch the mighty river come down the swift rapids, 
merciless and resistless as the stream of Time, and at 
last plunge into the awful abyss below. Instinctively 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 205 

you step back from the fearful cataract, lest some 
sudden impulse of your own, some toy of desperation, 
or some careless movement of another should hurl 
you into that mist-wreathed flood and bury you for- 
ever. What fate more terrible than to be thrown 
upon those angry waters with inevitable death be- 
fore yon. What courage more sublime than deliber- 
ately to seek such a death ! Yet the man who jumps 
down the Falls of Niagara is no hero. Without duty, 
without service, he dies a suicide and a fool; while 
the soldier, who, in the love of his country and the 
discharge of his duty, marches to a no less certain 
death, before the cannon's mouth or the deadly rifle- 
pit — not all the ages of eternity can blot out his glory 
from the memory of God and men, for he dies that 
others may live. 

The two periods of fifteen years each from 1774 to 
1789 and from 1850 to 1865, are remarkable alike in 
the condition of affairs at the beginning and in the 
magnitude of the results achieved at the end. In 
1774 George III was king. In 1850 slavery was king. 
The first period of fifteen years extinguished a peo- 
ple's loyalty to their king and mother country, ac- 
customed them to the idea of independence, secured 
independence, organized a new nation with a new 
system of government, and made George Washington 
president of the republic. The second period of 
fifteen years destroyed a people's devotion to slavery 
as protected by the Constitution, created a new dec- 
laration of independence, abolished slavery, and as- 
sured the continuance of the republic in accord with 
the principles of the fathers, without sectional divi- 
sions of marked importance. Such results could 
never have been secured by the opponents of slavery, 



206 LESSONS FROM OUR 

if the friends of slavery had not thrown away the 
protection of the Constitution. It was the friends of 
slavery, seized with the madness which the gods send 
to those whom they would destroy, who voluntarily 
abandoned by rebellion the protection of the Consti- 
tution and thus gave the republic an opportunity to 
destroy slavery forever. Universal freedom could 
have been secured in no other way, and it was God's 
will that it should be secured in this way. 

When the rebellion broke out our government had 
existed for more than seventy years. Our career on 
the whole had been peaceful and prosperous. As the 
years passed on, our example had not been without 
influence upon other countries. Humanity meant 
more than it did before the people anywhere governed 
themselves. Despotism was less sacred when seen to 
be unnecessary. The country had extended its area 
till it embraced every part of the continent which the 
most sensitive patriotism could deem necessary to 
our security. There had been, indeed, a war of words 
going on, as there always is in this country, but no 
serious disturbance had occurred, and very few peo- 
ple in the North at least believed that a civil war was 
at hand. On the twelfth of April, 1861, war was be- 
gun by the firing upon Fort Sumter. The response 
to that attack was the unlooked-for and magnificent 
uprising of the hitherto peaceable and unwarlike 
North. Party lines were forgotten. All men were 
Americans. The flag had been fired on by rebels. 
Men could hardly believe it. 

Senator Douglas, taking his stand at once in fa- 
vor of the Union, goes home to Illinois after Congress 
adjourns and receives an ovation from a legislature 
that had been politically opposed to him, which could 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 207 

hardly have been surpassed if Lincoln himself had 
been the one to be honored. Everywhere, men who 
had been fighting each other all their lives now joined 
hands to maintain the Union. No more cheering fact 
appears in all our history than this — that however 
much our people may differ as to the policy to be pur- 
sued, they do not differ in the feeling that the Union 
must be preserved. No man could doubt how the tide 
was running in the North forty-eight hours after the 
attack on Sumter. Minnesota was the first state to 
tender a regiment to save the Union, and Gettysburg 
cau tell what kind of a regiment it was. Even com- 
mercial New York kindled into a glow of patriotism 
with the rest of the North. The children of to-day 
can not realize the sorrow and anguish crowded into 
the following four years — North and South. Every- 
where beyond the border was bloodshed. Battles that 
would have made their participants and victors im- 
mortal in any other war, sank into insignificance be- 
fore the mightier contests in this war of the giants. 
In the eight largest battles of the war, the total of 
killed and wounded on the Union side was 112,000. 
And then there was Andersonville, with its prisoners 
slowly starving to death — how many, I suppose God 
only knows. It is impossible to picture it. But in 
vision the veterans see it, and the memory of the brave 
fellows who died, obscures somewhat the brightness 
of their joy, when they think of their country saved 
and what they did to save it. 

Nor were the battles all fought south of the Po- 
tomac. Almost every election in the Northern states 
was a fierce struggle over the question whether the 
war should go on, or the South be permitted to set 
up its Confederacy. A political campaign in those 



208 LESSONS FROM OUR 

days was something more than a scramble for office. 
The questions at issue were such as appealed to the 
noblest feelings; and the best men in the country 
were stirred to the depths of their hearts by the dis- 
cussion of these questions. Freedom or slavery for 
the territories ; union or disunion ; slavery or no slav- 
ery; these were the themes upon which orators might 
well grow eloquent, and in settling which all the 
latent earnestness of the nation might well be called 
into action. Religion, philanthropy, loyalty, patriot- 
ism, all united to kindle a lofty enthusiasm among the 
people, which has never been surpassed in this or any 
other country. And the sacrifices which were made, 
as husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, went forth to 
do battle for the country, were conspicuous for the 
unselfish devotion which characterized them, and 
they would have been conspicuous themselves but for 
the fact that they were so numerous and common. 
War demoralizes. But the great uplift of the nation 
to a higher moral purpose which carried us through 
the war of the rebellion, saved us from the demoral- 
ization of ordinary wars of conquest. 

It is a question sometimes raised whether great 
events produce great men or whether great men pro- 
duce great events. When John Brown's raid at Har- 
per's Ferry occurred in 1859, and the whole country 
was shaken by it, hardly one of the men who were to 
be the most prominent in the great Civil War, then 
only two years distant, had especially attracted the 
public attention. In the army, the name of Winfield 
Scott overshadowed all others ; but when the trouble 
came, it was found that age and disease had left 
of Scott little but a name. He had already lived 
five years more than the allotted three score year& 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 20& 

and ten when the Civil War began, and early in the 
first year of the war he retired from active service, 
leaving the command of oar forces to men untried 
in any large contests and for the most part unknown 
to fame. The story of our military commanders in 
the war is another illustration of the doctrine of 
evolution and of the survival of the fittest. Many 
were called, but few chosen. In the silent hero, who 
at last became the commanding general and whose 
plans guided all the armies of the Union to final 
victory, it would be hard to recognize the rough and 
not too successful tanner of Galena of five years 
before. 

The great man of the Republican party from the 
time of its organization was William H. Seward, of 
New York. He had been the leader of the Free Soil 
Whigs, of New York, as Millard Fillmore was the 
leader of the Silver Gray Whigs or Conservatives in 
that state. Mr. Seward had been the honored governor 
in the Empire state. He had become a United States 
senator and had at once taken rank with the ablest 
men of that body. It was he, as likely to be the next 
presidential candidate of the Republican party, upon 
whom the Congressional Investigating Committee 
tried hardest to fasten some responsibility for, or 
complicity with, John Brown's raid into Virginia. 
Nobody at that time saw the coming man, who, almost 
from the backwoods, was to outstrip Mr. Seward in 
the race for the nomination and was to be entrusted 
with the hardest duties which any president has been 
called to perform. Yet, in a little law-office in central 
Illinois, the tall, gaunt, strong- faced man, who had 
triumphantly met Douglas in debate ; a self-made man 
who did his own thinking; a man without experience 



210 LESSONS FROM OUR 

in diplomacy and with little experience in legislation; 
a man without the culture of the schools or the 
graces of manner that mark the well-bred gentleman ; 
a man, in fact, of the blood of the poor Southern 
whites, was waiting to hear whatever summons might 
come to him. It came — a summons to the presidency 
of the country. The great statesmen who had for 
years filled the public eye, all stood aside, as perforce 
they must when the people will it, that this untried 
and almost unknown man might come to the front. 
But he came to the front, as conspicuous for his 
height as Saul among the people. And as the sad 
years of war and suffering rolled on, he proved him- 
self not less pre-eminent for all those intellectual 
and moral qualities which belong to the man who 
is both great and good. 

The most eloquent orators of our country have 
done their best to set Abraham Lincoln before the 
world as he was. I can not quote their words nor 
attempt in my own feeble way to impress upon you 
the grandeur of his character. He was the great- 
est figure of the century, raised up for a great occa- 
sion; and, having fulfilled his mission, he was, in a 
moment — in the moment of greatest joy — by the bul- 
let of an assassin, taken from the people who almost 
worshiped him and made to stand face to face with 
the unseen world. No other man in all history has 
had so many tears shed for him at death, as fell 
from the eyes of the American people when Abraham 
Lincoln died. 

The great commander whose military operations 
brought the war to a close, lived to enjoy the re- 
established peace, lived to be president of the re- 
public for eight years, lived to experience all that 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 211 

there is of comfort in human applause, and much 
of the bitterness which attends human censure; and 
when at last at Mt. McGregor, he lay for months 
the victim of an incurable disease, calmly waiting 
for the triumph of that Conqueror who conquers 
all, he was sustained and cheered by the expressions 
of sympathy and love which came to him from all 
classes of people in all parts of the country, among 
them not a few who under the Confederate flag had 
fought against him on many a field of battle. And 
so at last he passed away, his heart filled with the 
largest hope for the peace and prosperity of his coun- 
try. And so, one after another, the great men of 
the war have almost all passed away. Grant, Sher- 
man, Sheridan, Meade, Hancock, Thomas, Terry, and 
many others whose names you cherish in affectionate 
remembrance of what they were and what they did 
— all are gone and only one or two of the secondary 
luminaries still linger above the horizon. But when 
all are gone, and the great company of noble men 
who fought under them, shall have melted into dust, 
America will remain purer and nobler for what they 
did, more truly than ever before the land of the free. 



It is not enough that the country is free. A 
people w T ho govern themselves are free; but to gov- 
ern well they must be intelligent, wise, and patriotic. 
The evidence is unmistakable and abundant that in 
our country to-day, the political power is not uni- 
formly in the hands of the intelligent, wise, and pa- 
triotic. Has our country been ennobled by its bap- 
tism in blood? Are personal rights more secure and 
is life more sacred than before the war? Are honor 
and integrity in public life more common, anl is cor- 



212 LESSONS FROM OUR 

ruption more rare? Is brotherhood more appreciated 
and injustice more hated? Is political ambition 
more modest than it was before Gettysburg was 
fought? Does Minnesota remember the heroism of 
her First Regiment which cost the lives of so many 
brave men? Does she remember the devotion of all 
her regiments, successful or unsuccessful, and will 
she guard the temples of law and government as 
resolutely as her soldiers defended the Union? These 
are questions that deserve at least attention; ques- 
tions which you yourselves by your future course 
will do much to answer. 

No war more just was ever waged than that for 
the preservation of the Union, and, as it proved, for 
the destruction of slavery. But a nation never yet 
w r ent through a long and bloody war, no matter how 
just, and came out of it in as good condition as it 
was in when the war began. It has lost large num- 
bers of its bravest and best citizens ; and this is es- 
pecially so when the soldiers are volunteers whose 
inspiration is patriotism. War tends to destroy the 
sacredness of life, makes it cheap, when so many are 
killed in every battle. Again, war tends to demoral- 
ize those engaged in it, a calamity avoided only when 
hearts are kept tender by the constant proofs of love 
from the dear ones at home. Again, war unsettles 
values, inflates the currency, produces deceptive mi- 
rages of wealth, excites greed, wastes billions, and yet 
seems to make the nation richer, makes possible vast 
fortunes, and in every way stimulates all evil de- 
sires for gain. The nation breathes a new atmos- 
phere, looks at objects through a new medium, sees 
things out of all proportion, and the calm and rea- 
sonableness of the old days of peace are thoroughly 



COUNTRY'S HISTORY 213 

destroyed even for those who have nothing to do but 
to direct their own business enterprises. 

It will take years to bring matters back to the 
sweet reasonableness of peaceful days. Many a se- 
vere lesson of business depression and financial ruin 
will be learned before the nation can resume its old- 
time patience and comfort. 

But America, however great may be her business 
depression, is yet rich and strong in all things needed 
for comfort in life; and there is no reason why we 
should long be an unhappy people, if we will only 
learn to moderate our desires and to be content with 
enough. It will be a happy day for us when we learn to 
be content without being rich ; when immense fortunes 
are seen to be unnecessary for comfort ; and when an 
equitable distribution of wealth, brought about by 
diminished greed of capital and a universal partici- 
pation in labor, shall multiply the happy homes of 
our country, transform the vagrants into workmen, 
and the workmen into contented citizens having an 
assured support. The day for wasteful prodigality 
and empty ostentation has gone by. The time for 
economy, prudence, carefulness, the virtues of the fa- 
thers and mothers of the republic, has come. 

Let us then resolve that, so far as lies in our 
power, the land in which we live shall be not merely 
the land of freedom, but the land of justice to all, that 
the sacrifices of the past shall not have been made in 
vain ; and that the great republic, founded by the 
faith of the fathers and sustained by the heroism of 
the sons, shall be kept by us true to the purpose for 
which it was established, to be administered by honest 
and patriotic men, and to be in reality the land of the 
free and the home of the brave. 



SOME ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS * 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The variety of occasions on which I have of late 
been called upon to address public meetings, is, I find, 
seriously affecting my style, so that it is not as easy 
for me as formerly to adapt my remarks to the au- 
dience which I am to address. Thus, when, as now, 
I come before an assembly of medical ladies and 
gentlemen, I feel no disposition whatever to practice, 
but am rather disposed to preach ; whereas, when I go 
to church, I have no inclination to preach, but am 
sure to be strongly urged to practice. 

If this unfortunate tendency to say the right thing 
at the wrong time should be too strongly developed 
this evening, I am sure you will pardon me as being 
the victim of unfortunate circumstances. I have ac- 
cepted the very flattering invitation of the faculty 
of this college to speak to-night, not because I am 
conscious of any special fitness for the task, but be- 
cause I have a very genuine and intelligent interest 
in the work which this college is doing, a genuine 
interest because it is something more than a mere 
acquaintance with the gentlemen who conduct the 
college, and with the purposes which they may be 
supposed to have; and an intelligent interest because 

*Delivered at the Commencement Exercises of Minneapolis Medical 
College in 1886. 

-15 



216 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

I have taken some pains to ascertain the character 
of the work they are doing and the measure of suc- 
cess which attends their efforts; and I am glad to 
say that I have been greatly pleased with both. If, 
then, I can aid the professors here in their work, can 
encourage them in their purposes, can strengthen 
them in public estimation in the slightest degree, or, 
if I can say anything that will be helpful to the 
young men who have now finished their course of 
professional studies, and who stand to-night face 
to face with the world, I should be very reluctant to 
refuse to do so. 

The relation of the medical profession to human 
welfare is too thoroughly understood and appreciated 
to require any special enforcement from me at this 
time. Sickness is sure to be the unwelcome visitor 
in every household. Death is the inevitable fate of 
every human being. Suffering more or less acute 
must be experienced by all. It is the mission of the 
doctor to relieve suffering, to cure sickness, and to 
repel death as long as possible. And since there is 
nothing which the human family values more than 
health, and nothing which it dreads more than death, 
the doctor is eagerly sought and welcomed as the 
ally of the suffering in their conflict with disease 
and death. The skill which can diagnose a case of 
illness, can foretell its probable course, and, at each 
stage of the disease, can devise and apply an effect- 
ive remedy, is something which ordinary common 
sense can not fail to value, and which ordinary hu- 
man nature can not fail to be grateful for. The prog- 
ress of medical science within a comparatively few 
years has been very marked; and the old time phy- 
sician would find much in the modern system of medi- 



ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 217 

cine that would surprise him. And I am not cer- 
tain that the medical schools of the country to-day 
feel entirely sure that twenty years hence they will 
even be standing upon the same foundations as at 
present. Certain fundamental principles will of course 
remain, but it is no news to you that even medical 
schools have experienced some of that disturbance 
and unrest, which, like a tidal wave, has swept over 
cultivated minds everywhere in the last few years 
and raised questions which could not at once be sat- 
isfactorily answered. But whatever may come in 
the future, we can not but note the fact that grati- 
fying progress has been made in the recent past. 
Science has brought under control a number of dis- 
eases that were formerly supposed to be incurable; 
has provided many new agencies for the relief of suf- 
fering; and has greatly enlarged the scope of the 
physician's duties by adding to the list of remedial 
agents and of operations that are difficult and dan- 
gerous and yet capable of being successfully per- 
formed. The result has been not only an increased 
usefulness of the profession, but an elevation of the 
character of the profession as requiring higher in- 
tellectual qualities and more marvelous dexterity, 
the successful exercise of which is the strongest evi- 
dence of high powers, symmetrically developed in 
the physician. This advanced condition of medical 
science renders the profession an unsuitable field of 
labor for all that class of persons, however great may 
be their knowledge, who have not the power of keen 
and accurate observation, nor a sharply discriminat- 
ing logical faculty, nor the ability to make deft and 
delicate manipulations. And whenever a young phy- 
sician discovers that he is lacking in these respects, 



218 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

he will do well to seek some other occupation as 
soon as may be. For he can have no assurance of suc- 
cess in medicine. That so many medical students 
are able to become successful practitioners, and have 
the courage to face the responsibilities of their pro- 
fession is to me a matter of surprise; while it is 
no less to me a cause of astonishment and regret 
that men, who know themselves to be destitute of 
medical learning and skill, should be found willing 
to trifle with the health and lives of confiding pa- 
tients. 

But in your case, gentlemen, it is fairly to be 
presumed that the first essentials of success, knowl- 
edge, and skill, have been already secured by you. 
These requisites for the successful practice of your 
profession have been provided by the patient care 
and ability of your professors, and by your faithful 
study and attention to the lectures and the clinics. 
You will superadd to these, by and by, what will 
be of the greatest value to you— experience. I sin- 
cerely trust that this experience may not cost you 
too much, and that it may be gained without any 
unnecessary physical suffering on the part of your 
patients or of mental anguish on your own part. 
But I am not here, gentlemen, as one of your pro- 
fession to give you special instruction respecting the 
technicalities of your science. 1 am to speak to you 
from my own experience and observation, not as a 
doctor, but as a man. The principles which I rec- 
ommend to you are those which underlie success in 
all professions and, to some extent, in all occupa- 
tions. I feel a very great degree of pleasure in hav- 
ing the opportunity to say some things to you that 
I hope may be remembered by you and may be of 



ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 219 

service to you. If there is anything which I take spe- 
cial pleasure in doing, it is helping the young to find 
the road to a true success. Most men who have been 
for some time engaged in the battle of life have had 
a certain degree of wisdom pounded into them, if they 
did not get it in a more natural way ; and hence they 
are able, without any special merit on their part, 
to give advice to the young that is often worth more 
than the young are disposed to think. It is well 
for the young who are just about to engage in life's 
battle that they do not see what is before them as 
clearly as we do who are older. But because they 
do not see and are thus bright and joyous and hope- 
ful, they are all the more likely to be rudely shocked 
and saddened when the inevitable comes. And it is 
on this point, first of all, that I wish to warn you. 
If you have no faith in yourself, if you do not hon- 
estly believe that there is in you the making of a 
skillful physician, now is the time for you to pause 
in your career and find some other occupation. Suc- 
cess is not ordinarily to be gained by half-hearted 
men, who distrust themselves and their powers. There 
is wisdom in the saying — Possunt quia posse viden- 
tur. "They are able to do it because they appear 
to be able to do it"; or "They can because they 
think they can." There must be at least hope of 
success to induce us to put forth the exertions neces- 
sary for success. And if now you have no such hope, 
no such, confidence in your power to win success, and 
in your merit to deserve success, now is the time to 
find it out, and so avoid the long and sickening wait- 
ing for what even you do not expect ever to come. 
But if you are determined to enter the profession, 
then first of all I exhort you to be patient and hope- 



220 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

ful to the end. Study — you will be sure to have 
plenty of leisure to do so. Keep your office, if you 
want your office ultimately to keep you. Don't iso- 
late yourself, however, so completely as to forget 
that you were a man before you were a physician; 
remember that, while you may be storing up knowl- 
edge, you may also be in danger of becoming mor- 
bid and despondent, and therefore unsuited to the 
successful use of your knowledge. Keep cheerful, 
if possible — and that you can not do for a long time 
without human companionship. Get friends, there- 
fore, even if you do not get patients, and let these 
friends help you to ward off the despondency and 
gloom which are pretty sure to threaten you, if you 
are obliged to wait a long time for practice. My 
heart bleeds for the long line of patient or despair- 
ing students, from the versatile Goldsmith down to 
the last year's graduate, who have suffered all that 
weary waiting and final despair can bring. But don't 
give up. Keep as cheerful a face as you can ; and be 
ready for what may happen. By and by something 
will happen and you will be set to work. Then if 
you do the work well, the worst will be over. A sin- 
gle month may suffice to transform you from a pa- 
tientless student, to a well-to-do practitioner. And 
now, when you are fairly started on your career, 
what will you be and do? Of course you will be 
anxious to make a first-class reputation, and I cer- 
tainly hope you may succeed not only in making 
the reputation but in deserving it — in other words 
that what you are as a physician will be as good 
as what you are supposed to be. I am speaking 
now of your professional reputation and character. 
But are you to be nothing more in the world than 



ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 221 

a skillful physician? What of you as a man? I 
do not mean what sort of character in the ordinary 
meaning of the term are you going to have as a man. 
It goes without saying that respectable people will 
not generally employ a doctor who has a bad char- 
acter. Sometimes a certain class of people will em- 
ploy a doctor who gets intoxicated. They apparently 
think that a man who is so able and skillful when 
he is nearly drunk, must be a man of tremendous 
ability if he ever gets sober. I recall a case of this 
kind. The doctor had a very large practice among 
his countrymen, but, gentlemen, his practice has been 
over for several years, and for months past he has 
been the inmate of a charitable public institution — 
his mind all gone — and death the only possible 
change that can come to him. But it is not of the 
effect of character upon your practice that I wish 
to speak. I wish rather to say something of the duty 
you owe to society in this respect. 

We all know that the forces which tend to de- 
moralize society, to make virtue a laughing stock 
and vice a delight, are very strong and very active. 
If I were to enumerate all those forces which are 
operating right here in this beautiful and, on the 
whole, peaceful city of Minneapolis, I should draw 
a picture at which humanity might both blush and 
weep, and which the lover of his race might shud- 
der to contemplate. Yet these forces are not worse 
here certainly than in most cities. If an army were 
approaching to destroy Minneapolis, how soon we 
should rally to defend our homes, and how easy it 
would be, comparatively, to repel the attack. We 
should know where to find the enemy. We could see 
them. We could know where to fire and when. But 



222 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

the assaults of immorality and crime are so insidi- 
ous that it is with the utmost difficulty that society 
keeps itself up to its present excellence, and it is 
with still greater difficulty that it makes any ad- 
vance. We call in to our aid education, and we say 
that, if all are educated, vice will be lessened and 
crime will almost disappear. And unless we are 
right the outlook for humanity is very dark, and 
the twentieth century will be worse than the nine- 
teenth. In such a condition of things how much de- 
pends upon the character and consequent influence 
of professional men. Let it be generally understood 
that the medical profession are simply selfish money 
getters, that they are ready to accept or reject truth 
and action according as their own personal interest 
may dictate, that they can not be relied on to stand 
by what is good nor to help put down what is evil, 
and how terribly the forces of evil are thereby 
strengthened. Let the opposite be understood, and 
how all good forces are correspondingly strengthened. 
You have it in your power to do great good as a 
profession outside of the mere healing of the sick. 
If you take a position for or against anything that 
affects personal morals, you do it not as the clergy- 
man does as an ambassador from God, but from a 
thoroughly human view of the case and from your 
thorough knowledge of humanity and its needs. You 
are an educated class — a profession; your opportu- 
nities for influence are great; your right to influ- 
ence is great; your duty to exert influence is great. 
If, then, as an educated class in a profession giving 
you wonderful facilities for controlling popular 
thought and action, you use your opportunities for 
the best interests of humanity and of society, you 






ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 223 

become a bulwark against evil and a strong support 
to all that is good. And that you will do if you are 
men of good character. For character is not sim- 
ply negative. A man may never kill, nor steal, nor 
directly offend against the laws of society or of the 
commonwealth and yet not be a man of good char- 
acter. He may be simply a crouching, crawling, self- 
seeker, avoiding all responsibility and looking on 
without word or act, while evil and good contend 
for the mastery of the world. Is he a man of good 
character? No, either he has no character or a very 
bad one. Either he is nothing or what he is, is des- 
titute of goodness. 

It is because I recognize the tremendous power 
which the medical profession can exercise in form- 
ing the opinions of society and in guiding the tastes, 
the appetites, the passions of the human race, that 
I make this appeal to you. It is because if educa- 
tion is to be recognized as a necessary agent in pre- 
serving our institutions and the peace and prosperity 
of the human family, educated men and especially 
those so far advanced as to have entered the pro- 
fessions must show what education has done for 
them and what they in turn are ready now to do 
for others. There is a common ground on which 
we can all stand and fight the battle for order and 
progress. It is that society shall be protected, and 
that for the protection of society all men shall be 
3ducated, and that the things which common sense 
md professional knowledge condemn as evils shall 
be discouraged, whether or not other people who op- 
pose them do so for the same reasons as ourselves 
or not. You can co-operate with the sworn minister 
of justice, the lawyer, and with the preacher of mer- 



224 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

cy, the minister, though your grounds for action may 
not be precisely the same as theirs. 

And now, gentlemen, having made this appeal to 
your profession to take a decided stand on questions 
of public morality and to exert your powerful in- 
fluence, all the more powerful with many because 
you are seemingly governed by considerations of 
human science rather than of divine law, I close this 
part of my address with a bit of advice in the inter- 
est of the public good rather than of your professional 
success. It is this. Never sit on the fence between 
the friends and foes of measures vital to society,, 
unless you find yourself in the condition of the man 
who, when reproached for sitting on the fence, said: 
"yes, and I propose to stay there so long as it is 
so muddy on both sides." 

I took up the other day a work written by an 
eminent professor of medicine for the guidance of 
the profession in matters of common sense and busi- 
ness, and you will hardly be surprised to learn that 
I found more pages devoted to Bills, How to pre- 
sent bills, etc., than to any other topic. It is indeed 
an important subject and one in which you can hard- 
ly fail to take a deep and, I trust, an early interest. 

I had in mind before I read this book to give 
you one little piece of advice, and I was very much 
surprised to find that my advice would not have been 
orthodox; nevertheless I shall give it. The author- 
ity to which I refer says : "Attendance on a beloved 
child justifies a special charge." Apparently this is; 
put on the ground of the physician's special anxiety. 
But it seems to me strange that because a man loves 
his child he should pay more than the usual charge 
for the usual medical attendance. If the attendance 



ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 225 

is unusual an unusual charge would not be a special 
charge. I hope this is not recognized by the pro- 
fession as correct. Leave the rejoicing father some 
chance to show his gratitude. If you take all the 
money he has because the child was dear to him, 
you leave him nothing with which to show his grati- 
tude. 

It is sometimes said that- a doctor's bill is the 
last thing that people think of paying. I do not know 
how that may be. I can readily see that with people 
of limited income — and that means most people — the 
expenses of illness, not being looked for and, there- 
fore, not being reckoned into any estimate of ex- 
penses which they may have made, must be met by 
special retrenchment of expenses in other directions- 
or not be met at all. And, if the estimates of fam- 
ily expenses included nothing that was not neces- 
sary, the paying of the doctor's bill must be a work 
of difficulty, and doubtless the medical profession is 
obliged to do a great deal of work for which it receives 
no pay in this world, and, therefore, perforce, it lays 
up in the course of a long practice considerable treas- 
ure in heaven. And I am sure that, if the service 
is faithfully rendered and the failure to receive pay 
is accepted without grumbling and even with gra- 
ciousness of manner and a spirit of true charity wher- 
ever payment is practically impossible, no treasure 
could more truly be laid up in heaven than the fees 
which you never receive. For they are earned in 
work like that in which the great Physician was en- 
gaged when on earth, and the failure to collect them 
is accepted with the same spirit of benevolence which 
moved him in his great work of human redemption. 
If I were a physician, I should indeed be unhappy 



226 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

if I could not collect my bills so far as to pay for all 
that I and my family needed for comfort. But 
I am also sure that, if by my skill I could carry joy 
into the sorrowing households of the poor, could 
make the lame walk, or the blind see, or the fevered 
patient rise, I should carry nightly to my rest a 
spirit of divine peace in the consciousness that I 
had been able to do something to bless others, not 
for myself, but in His name. And I would never 
worry or fret, so long as I could honestly pay what 
I owed, if beyond that my only compensation were 
to be the prayers and blessings of mothers and fa- 
thers and children, restored to health and made happy 
by my fidelity and skill, or if even these prayers 
and blessings and expressions of gratitude were de- 
nied me, if I were only sustained by the thought 
of those blessed words : "Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto 
me." 

But as a rule the laborer is worthy of his hire. 
The physician should be paid as promptly and as 
cheerfully as the marketman or the merchant; and 
the more clearly you recognize this fact yourselves, 
and enforce it on others by the prompt presentation 
of your bill when your work is done, the better it 
will be for all concerned. If you are a competent 
physician, no matter whether a young one or an 
old one, you have earned your money, and you may 
collect it without any sense of shame on your part 
or any more unpleasant feeling on the part of your 
patient than bills usually create in the human fam- 
ily. It is only as you thus collect promptly and 
certainly from those who can pay, that you will be 
able cheerfully and even joyously to minister to 



ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 227 

those who can not pay and do this with the same 
fidelity and attention that you would bestow if you 
expected to be paid. 

And now, gentlemen, having aided you as far as 
I can in the collection of your bills, I exhort you 
so to conduct your practice that you may feel, when- 
ever you receive the money for any bill, that you 
have fairly earned it, that you have not magnified 
the danger of the patient, have not prolonged his 
illness, have not continued your professional at- 
tendance longer than was necessary, have not in any 
way used his ignorance and your knowledge to swell 
your claim upon him beyond fair pay for needed 
service. If you do this, you may be sure that what- 
ever skill you have, will be appreciated and whatever 
service you render will be cheerfully paid for, and, 
what perhaps is of more importance to you, if the 
patient again needs a physician, he will send for 
you. Unhappy is the man who is never called a 
second time. But to be sure that you are called 
the second time, be just and as merciful as you can 
be — the first time. Let me remind you also, that your 
success in securing practice will depend not a little 
upon your manners; a sick room is a place where 
good-breeding and the manners of a gentleman are 
very much to be desired and are sure to be appre- 
ciated. The first essential of a gentleman is a kind 
heart, and a kind heart will usually show itself by 
a certain gentleness of manner ; though I have known 
very kind hearts concealed under a brusque de- 
meanor. You are not, however, to try to make your- 
selves over after the pattern of some one else. On 
the contrary you are always to be yourself, but your- 
self at your best. No two of your professors — sue- 



228 ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 

cessful practitioners as they are — are very much 
alike. I do not wish to say anything personal to the 
faculty, but, as I recall them, they seem to me to 
be men of marked individuality, no two of whom 
would be easily mistaken for each other. Success, 
as you see, does not depend upon any one set of 
characteristics or any one type of breeding. But 
the bluff, outspoken, self-asserting, and positive man 
may have a charm as well as the refined, polite, and 
seemingly more courteous gentleman. The assump- 
tion of either character, if not natural to you, is to 
be avoided. I think nothing will so speedily strip 
a man of uncouthness and boorishness, and trans- 
form even the rudest into a gentleman as the accept- 
ance and practice of the law of love. If you feel 
right towards your fellowmen, you will generally 
treat them right. And what you lack in knowledge 
of etiquette will be more than made up by the sin- 
cere desire to add to the happiness of others. But 
good manners, even if they are nothing but manners, 
are not to be despised and should be cultivated. The 
refined accent, the well-modulated voice, the light 
step, the graceful greeting, the neat apparel, all these 
things help and have their market value. Cultivate 
good manners then; and what you do not know on 
the subject, find out by observing the manners of 
others. But beyond this do not go. Never try to 
be just like somebody else. Be yourself, a manly, 
upright, conscientious, faithful gentleman, accepting 
and keeping sacred the confidences reposed in you 
by your patients and their friends, keeping yourself 
free from envy and jealousy of professional rivals, 
never forgetting the duties you owe to society as 
a man and accordingly standing up like a man for 



ADVICE TO YOUNG PHYSICIANS 229 

what is true and good. Do this, and you can not 
out succeed, if you have laid here, as I trust you 
have, a broad and solid foundation of knowledge of 
the science of medicine. And so congratulating you, 
one and all, on having persevered to the end of your 
course and having completed one very important 
stage in your journey of life, I wish you all a pleas- 
ant and speedy introduction to the fields of practice, 
and very useful and very happy lives as physicians. 



IDEALS FOR BOYS* 

There are many ties which bind me to Shattuck 
School and which make my first appearance here 
to address you an occasion of special interest 
to me. Several teachers in this school at various 
times had been my pupils and personal friends be- 
fore they came to you. Some of your graduates have 
been students in the college with which I have been 
connected. One of them was more frequently at my 
house in New Haven and more intimate in my fam- 
ily than any other student whom I have ever known. 
I watched his progress through college with admira- 
tion. I saw him graduate with high honors. I saw 
him enter upon his subsequent work with joy and 
hope and the expectation of soon taking holy orders, 
and then I saw him die. All through his career in 
college I could trace the influence of Shattuck School, 
which, somewhat idealized doubtless by his lively 
imagination, had stamped itself ineffaceably upon 
his memory. In the pictures which he drew of your 
life here, pictures always drawn with a loving hand 
and from which everything unpleasant was carefully 
or unwittingly excluded, I came to know you, almost 
as well as I shall know you after my experience here 
to-day. Your rector became familiar to me before 

*Delivered at Shattuck School, Faribault, Minnesota, at Commence- 
ment, June 16th, 1887. 

—16 



232 IDEALS FOR BOYS 

I saw him. Your bishop, whose name is known wher 
ever the church of Christ exists, became in those days 
known to me in his individuality, his personal ap- 
pearance, and his personal characteristics almost as 
well as he is now. What these men had said and 
done was largely moulding that student's life and 
character all through college; and as I saw what 
a firm hold this school had gained on the imagination 
of the young student, how its influence was shaping 
for him a manly and a Christian life, nay more, how, 
though it were the blasting of all his hopes save 
one, he could go down into the dark valley and meet 
death with composure and with peace, saying, "It 
is all right," I could not but think of Shattuck as 
the American Rugby; and of your rector and bishop 
as American types of that Thomas Arnold, whose 
spirit, pervading the school at Rugby like an inspira- 
tion, so lifted the boys in their scholarship, their 
character, and their religious life — Tom Brown's old 
master, whose death, you remember, so sobered the 
boy in the midst of his shooting in Scotland, and 
made him forsake his sports at once and go back 
to visit Rugby to shed his tears of sincere mourning 
by the grave of the teacher who had been to him 
and to so many such a power for good. 

I can not stand here to-day, in the midst of these 
scenes so familiar to me by description, but which, 
when first described to me, I did not expect ever to 
see — these scenes that even to me are so full of pre- 
cious memories and associations — I can not speak to 
these boys so full of life and hope, proud of what 
they have done and confident of their future, I can 
not look upon the happy faces of their friends and 
realize how their hopes center in the future of these 



IDEALS FOR BOYS 233 

manly boys, without feeling more than ordinary emo- 
tion, as memory is busy reproducing the past and 
painting pictures of things, which, once familiar to 
me, I shall see no more but in memory ; nor can I real- 
ize my responsibility for what I shall say to these 
young students standing on the threshold of life, with- 
out a sense of my incompetence for the task before me. 
Yet I have not come here to sadden you. Least of 
all have I come here to preach. You boys can not 
have spent all these years in Shattuck without gain- 
ing a clear idea of the value of both education and 
religion, the things which prepare you for intercourse 
with your fellowmen and with God. Leaving, then, 
these subjects of high debate as things with which 
you may be presumed to be already sufficiently fa- 
miliar, I may be permitted as a teacher who has 
spent his life in intercourse with boys and young 
men and who to-day feels himself the younger for 
having lived with the young, to talk with you fa- 
miliarly upon some other and less imposing topics. 
As in passing through an undulating and hilly 
country you sometimes come to an eminence from the 
top of which it is possible to gain a clear view of 
the region through which you have passed, to take 
in at a glance and as a unit what you have been 
for hours looking at in its parts, so in life we come 
occasionally to days when we can and do look back 
upon our course for years past and realize as never 
before the wisdom or the folly of what we have been 
doing. Such a day is this to you. It is one of the 
great days of your life. I do not state it too strongly 
when I say that it is a day which you will never 
forget. High up on the dividing line between the 
past and the future, a dividing line which is real be- 



234 IDEALS FOR BOYS 

cause from this time your life inevitably undergoes 
a marked change, this day compels you to look back 
and to remember what you have been and have done, 
just as it invites you to look forward to what you 
are to be and to do. And as you thus look back 
what do you see? You have all had your good times, 
your sports and your fun. Doubtless you have all 
had your trials and your temptations here which 
you have met in the way that best suited your own 
natures. Doubtless some of you have been Tom 
Browns, and some, Harry Easts, and possibly some 
have been Arthurs. I hope you have all come through 
your trials safely, and that you are to-day good, 
manly fellows, looking life squarely in the face, and 
ready to meet it, without any undue expectation of 
favors, and without any fear. If you are such manly 
fellows, prepared to face life without fear or favor, 
your training here has not been in vain, whether 
you have learned little or much from the books which 
you have studied. 

Perhaps I shall astonish some of you and more 
likely I shall astonish your friends when I say to 
you, as I do now, that of all the good things which 
I suppose you have gained at Shattuck, I value least 
the knowledge which you have got from books and 
recitations. And yet your main business here has been, 
and rightly so, to get knowledge. In a certain sense, 
knowledge is power. Knowledge, therefore, got from 
books is not to be despised. But to you at your 
age the knowledge is not so valuable as the getting 
of it. Said a great philosopher, "If God were to 
give me the choice between truth and the search 
for truth, I would choose the latter. 1 ' It would be 
a wise choice. What a boy needs to get at school 



IDEALS FOR BOYS 235 

is not a supply of knowledge that will last him 
during life — for he really uses in a direct way but 
very little of the knowledge that he gets at school, 
and quite likely ten years hence very few of you 
could pass the examinations through which you have 
just come. But in the getting of this knowledge 
your minds have been disciplined and you have be- 
come their masters, so that, whether in the future 
you are to pursue your studies further or are merely 
to deal with the world's practical business, you will 
be equal to the occasion, will be cool, calm, resolute, 
judicious, and invincible. And if you have got out 
of your school days and work what you ought to 
have got, it is just this, the power to meet and over- 
come the difficulties of life and to avail yourself 
of the opportunities of life, whether or not you can 
explain years hence the intricacies of classical my- 
thology or of human history or of the genera and 
species of nature's children as accurately as you 
could once in the classroom. The important question 
is not whether you have inflated yourself with knowl- 
edge, but whether you have grown by that which 
you have fed upon. Of all things deliver me from 
the scholastic dude, who is not a sufficiently vigorous 
scholar to have a creative mind, but who is so 
crammed and weighted with the fruits of other men's 
scholarship as to have no freedom of action in his own 
independent manhood. 

And this leads me to the very heart of what I 
wish to say to you. If there is any expression which, 
when applied to a young man, brings honor to him 
in my mind, it is the expression, "a manly fellow." 
It means so very much that is good, and the absence 
of so very much that is bad. "He is a manly fellow." 



236 IDEALS FOR BOYS 

"He dares do all that may become a man ; who dares 
do more is none." Both in what he dare do and what 
he dare not do, he is manly. For you will notice 
that it is quite as manly not to dare to do some things 
as it is to dare to do the boldest things. There is, for 
example, hardly any higher praise which a teacher 
can give a scholar than to say of him that "he scorns 
to do a mean act." The boy of whom that can be 
said is the boy who is going to be in after years 
the kind of man whom you like to meet, whom you 
can trust, who, in western phraseology, "will do to 
tie to." He is going to be the man, who, wherever 
he lives, will be looked up to and be trusted by the 
community; will be a leader in all measures for the 
welfare of society; will be the man on whom his 
rector can lean with assurance; on whose judgment 
the business men of the place can rely; to whom 
the widow and the orphan can go for advice and 
comfort; and towards whom the eyes of those even 
who despise and hate the things which he esteems, will 
turn with involuntary admiration and respect. Doubt- 
less it is a great thing to be a successful orator, or 
to be eminent in literature, or to be a leader at the 
bar, or distinguished in church or state. But I tell 
you, boys, what this country needs is a larger sup- 
ply of manly fellows to fill in with, of manly fellows 
who will stand by one another in defence of every- 
thing good, who will hold on to the highest things 
and yet not let go of the people who are below them ; 
who, without any cant or hypocrisy but because in 
a manly way they believe in God and the things 
that are good, will do their best, by showing in their 
lives what Christianity really is, to prevent, in this 
age of hardness and bitterness and growing hate,. 



IDEALS FOR BOYS 237 

the church of Christ from being separated by an 
impassable gulf from the men and women for whom 
Christ died. It is a glorious thing to be this sort 
of a man ; and there never was an age or a coun- 
try in which such men were so needed or had so 
blessed a future before them, as now and here. They 
are needed not merely as commanders or as leaders 
in the church, but as privates and in society and 
business life; they are needed as examples to show 
that a truly manly fellow can do his duty wherever 
God puts him, in the ranks just as well as in com- 
mand. It such men that I wish yon to be. And 
is it not to be such men that you have been trained? 
Look for a moment at the training you have received, 
and, first of all, your physical training. The body 
in its best development ought not to be the master, 
but when well-trained it is a most excellent serv- 
ant. The pugilist is an example of the sacrifice 
of the mental and moral nature to the physical. The 
bully is an example of cowardly pride in the low- 
est form of human power, and, if he be a school- 
boy, he is as contemptible an object on the playground 
as can well be imagined. But the young fellow who 
can strike one blow straight from the shoulder and 
not need to strike a second blow, when it is necessary 
to knock down a bully or some other enemy of hu- 
man peace or virtue, has had training that, as far 
as it goes, is not to be despised — and is to be despised 
none the more because it is so often abused and per- 
verted to bad uses, as every other kind of training 
and accomplishment is. An erect manly form, a 
well-developed chest, good strong lungs, muscles that 
know how to harden into steel at the command of 
the will, ease and grace of movement, a quick eye 



238 IDEALS FOR BOYS 

and a ready hand, these are possessions that any 
father would desire his boy to have, and that any 
sensible boy would be glad to have. With such 
a physical development, the result of training and 
culture, and not the mere lavish and unappreciated 
and unrecognized gift of nature, the boy who is not a 
manly fellow, who is either brutal in the use of his 
superior physical powers, or content to possess them 
alone without corresponding mental and moral 
strength, must have but a puny soul as the occupant 
of his splendid, earthly tabernacle. No true man can 
ever exalt the physical above the intellectual and 
spiritual. But the mind and soul, masters though 
they are and ought to be, are yet so dependent upon 
the body for the free and effective exercise of their 
functions, that in their interest alone too much care 
can hardly be taken to secure health, symmetry, and 
vigor of body. Now and then, indeed, in the world's 
history the fires of genius have burned bright enough 
in dwarfed, or crippled, or diseased bodies to illumi- 
nate the world; but they would have burned all the 
brighter and much longer had these bodies been well- 
formed and healthy and vigorous. The day has gone 
by for measuring a man's intellect by his physical 
weakness and disease, or for measuring his piety 
by his lack of flesh and blood. Skeletons are no 
longer regarded as the most efficient helpers for either 
mind or soul. So long then as the athletic sports 
of our schools and colleges are kept within proper 
limits as efficient helpers in the harmonious devel- 
opment of our boys' entire nature, they ought to 
be encouraged. It is only when they pass beyond 
these limits and produce physical culture at the 
expense of the intellectual, substituting large mus- 



IDEALS FOR BOYS 239 

cles for great thoughts, swift feet for quick wits, and 
hard, grasping hands that can catch a ball for tender 
and capacious souls that can hold on to a conviction, 
that they become evil and ought to be brought within 
narrower limits. 

In the next place, consider your intellectual train- 
ing. What has it done for you? This depends upon 
various things, such as the course of study, the effi- 
ciency of the teachers, and the earnestness of the 
scholars. Concerning these things as related to your 
school I know of course comparatively little. Yet 
I know enough about these things here to be certain of 
one thing and that is, that your intellectual training 
here has done for you all that you would let it do. If 
you have been honest and faithful in your work, I can 
tell you of some of the things which you have learned ; 
and in order to do this I do not need to know what 
books you have used or what studies you have pur- 
sued. The true outcome of all proper study at your \ 
age is growth, culture, character, and not facts. Let 
us look, then, at some few of the many things which 
you have learned, and see whether they are such 
things as will help you to be manly fellows, and so 
whether the training here is likely to make manly 
fellows in the years that are to come. 

If you have been honest and faithful in your 
work, you have learned to think, to reason, to dis- 
criminate, to decide, those acts which are the essen- 
tials of success in active life. The thoughtless man, 
the unreasonable man, the man without discrimina- 
tion, the man unable to make up his mind with all 
the facts before him — none of these are very useful 
or very manly fellows. They are the waverers, 
"driven of the wind and tossed"; they are the "dou- 



240 IDEALS FOR BOYS 

ble-minded men unstable in all their ways." You 
have learned not to be such men. You have learned 
to trace effects back to causes, and from causes 
to anticipate effects. You have learned to under- 
stand, to some extent, nature, whether it be inani- 
mate nature or human nature. You have learned 
something of the forces and materials with which 
you are to deal in the inevitable struggle for existence, 
and the skillful or unskillful management of which 
is to determine your success or failure. You have 
also learned, to some extent, that most important 
thing, to know yourself. You have learned by com- 
petition with your companions that others are as 
bright as you are, that others can do as good work 
as you can, and that the prizes of life are not to be 
yours without an effort; or, if you have easily led 
all your fellows, you have not been so dull as not 
to learn that the Admirable Crichton of one school 
may be but a very ordinary mortal when put into 
competition with the Admirable Crichtons of all the 
schools. And so, thankful for what you have learned, 
and for the powers which you possess, you are yet 
able to be modest while self-respectful, hopeful but 
not arrogant, in short a cultivated, thoughtful, ear- 
nest, manly fellow, who wants nothing of the world 
that he can not earn, and who does not look upon 
himself as either the favorite or the victim of for- 
tune. 

If you are all such manly fellows now as I have 
been describing, there is no reason why you should 
not continue to be such as long as you live, for the 
wholesome nurture of childhood and youth is for 
all time. There will never be any doubt where you 
stand. Draw a line between right and wrong, and 



IDEALS FOR BOYS 241 

no one will ever be at a loss to determine on which 
side of that line you will be found. And this not 
merely because your intellects have been trained, 
but because, in cultivating your understanding, you 
have not failed to learn that "the fear of the Lord 
is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding 
have all they that do his commandments." 

I have said these things to you without any ref- 
erence to what you are proposing to be or to do. 
So far as being manly fellows is concerned, it does 
not matter whether your business shall be to preach 
or to practice or to do neither. All useful labor 
is honorable, and there is no true work into which 
a cultivated mind and an honest heart can not bring 
the sunlight of God's approval. 

Whatever may be your work in life, do not forget 
the school in which you have spent these happy years 
and in which you have been trained for usefulness. 
I like a boy who remembers with affection the place 
where he was educated and who speaks of it with 
enthusiasm. And when a boy does not remember 
his school with affection, it is generally not because 
the school was unworthy of remembrance, but be- 
cause he has been so absorbed in self that his en- 
vironments, his teachers, his fellow students, the 
daily routine of duties, the miniature world in which 
he has spent the best years of his life, have made 
no impression upon him, and so memory can never 
for him reproduce the past. But if the past be for- 
gotten we can draw from it neither instruction nor 
delight. He, on the other hand, who pursues his 
course in school with earnestness and fidelity, who 
opens his heart to all noble and generous feelings, 
who catches something of the spirit and enthusiasm. 



242 IDEALS FOR BOYS 

of the teachers, who recognizes their absolute devo- 
tion to the school as an institution and their earn- 
est zeal to promote the highest interests of the boys 
committed to their charge, can never, never forget 
the school in which he has received so much of good, 
in which he has experienced so much of joy, and 
which, as the years go on, will never cease to be to 
him an inspiration. May the memory of Shattuck 
be such an inspiration to every one of you. 

I hope as many of you as can will go on with 
your studies further and not be content to stop until 
you have gained at least what we call a liberal edu- 
cation. I hope this for your own sake, and for the 
country's sake. There is no country where the "sa- 
cra fames auri" of Virgil, the accursed greed for 
gold, is so strong as with us — at least no country 
where men are so ready to devote their lives sys- 
tematically and without interruption or rest to the 
acquisition of wealth. But a man who sacrifices 
growth, learning, culture, for wealth, who gives his 
life for wealth alone, pays too high a price for what 
he gets. He brought nothing into the world and he can 
carry nothing out. But what he is here, he will be here- 
after. Death strips us of all our luggage, but he 
can not tear from our minds and hearts the things 
which have entered into and become a part of our 
intellectual and spirtual being. For myself, I would 
rather enter the unseen world as an intelligent spirit 
that had fed and grown upon the bounty of God 
on earth, than as a dwarfed soul, whose only achieve- 
ment in life was represented by a pile of gold on 
earth, over which the heirs are already wrangling. 
It is better to be than to have. 

And now, students of Shattuck, whether my 



IDEALS FOR BOYS 243 

ideas respecting your school are correct or not, it 
is in your power to make your school better even 
than it is, better certainly than it appears even to 
me. Every boy has his influence in determining the 
character of his school. There are fashions and 
customs in schools which the boys originate and 
which only the boys can destroy. If you have any 
such here that are unworthy of you, that are un- 
manly, that are unchristian, I pray you to destroy 
them; and let the most manly be the first to set his 
face against them. Whatever is good here, cherish 
and maintain. Be it yours to lift up Shattuck, 
to make it a school where the spirit of love shall 
be manifested in your daily lives, where a genuine 
and earnest devotion to sound scholarship shall pre- 
vail, where purity and peace shall abide, and where 
God shall be reverenced and honored in all that you 
do. 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER* 

The apostle John is credited with having written 
the Book of Eevelation and he has anticipated a good 
deal of the possible glory and splendor of the future, 
so that it would be hard for the liveliest imagination 
to paint coming glories which could not be said to 
have been practically anticipated by John in his 
Eevelation — and John is entitled to the credit of his 
vision. 

There are many bright men engaged in the work 
of education who are good talkers, who rarely talk 
twice alike, who have something new every day, and 
who in the aggregate seem to have been fairly suc- 
cessful in painting the future New Jerusalem of 
education — and they are entitled to the credit of their 
vision. 

But before the vision in John's Revelation can 
be realized, a great deal of hard work must be done, 
and they who do this work slowly and patiently 
lift up society and make better men and better citi- 
zens, are entitled to the full honor for what they 
accomplish, and are not to be shut off as unprofit- 
able or unoriginal because they have never reached 
any ideals which had not been anticipated by John 
in his Book of Revelation. And in like manner the 

^Delivered before the State Teachers' Association of Wisconsin, 
at Milwaukee, December 27th, 1906. 



246 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

great army of teachers who patiently strive to make 
the most finished product out of the raw material 
furnished them, and who, holding fast to whatever 
wisdom experience has taught, are yet ready to wel- 
come new ideas and to try new methods, are not 
to be robbed of the honor which belongs to them 
for making it possible to realize the apocalyptic vi- 
sions of our educational seers. 

There is at the present time undoubtedly not a 
little unrest in educational circles. Thinking men 
criticise the work of schools and of colleges. It is 
claimed that the requirements for admission to the 
college are too high or too low, and that the high 
schools are run specially for the small numbers who 
wish to go to college, and that the studies ought 
to be such as will fit for the vocation to be followed. 
It is claimed that much time is wasted on unprofit- 
able studies; and that too many studies are pursued 
at once. 

It is claimed that the cramming process is so 
much insisted on that students have no time to 
think, while it is generally admitted that education 
ought to help a student to think, and that the student 
who merely absorbs and never thinks can not be 
said to be educated. 

It is claimed that our courses of study have too 
little relation to the work of life, and that our teach- 
ing does not take account of the varying capacities, 
tastes, and possible achievements of the students. It 
is claimed that traditional ideals have too large con< 
trol, and inviting possibilities of a new character 
have too little control. It is claimed by some that, 
because a particular study is not profitable for every- 
body, it should be pursued by no one, and by others 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 247 

that, because a particular study is profitable to 
some, it should be pursued by everyone. It is claimed 
by some that too little attention is given to the 
analysis of the individual child's mind, and by others 
that overmuch attention to such study of the child's 
mind is more profitable in its results to the teacher 
than to the scholar. And I have no doubt that there 
is much reason for all of these varying and seem- 
ingly inconsistent criticisms. The fact is there is 
a measure of unrest and it arises from a conviction 
that Ave are not getting the best results from our 
education, are not getting such results as seem- 
ingly we ought to get from our largely expanded 
studies and our supposedly improved methods. 

But, really, when one considers the great vari- 
ety of topics, of character, and of ability involved 
in this work, it is rather surprising that we are doing 
as well as we are. For myself, I think that these 
differences of opinion respecting the wisdom and effi- 
ciency of our methods and scope of teaching arise 
for the most part from our different points of view; 
and that, if we could all look at the subject from 
the same point of view, we should be substantially 
agreed in our conclusions. We are all passing judg- 
ment not unskillfully on what we see, but we do 
not see everything. There are two sides to the shield 
and they are never alike, and no one looking at one 
side only can see what one looking at the other side 
sees. Perhaps it is not possible for any of us to 
see everything that some one else sees. It is well, 
therefore, to profit as far as possible by the criti- 
cisms of men who have a different point of view 
from ours and who see what we can not see. Real 
wisdom will be gained when the wisest thought of 

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248 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

all the educational critics has been brought together 
and has been correlated. 

Important as may be the incidental knowledge 
imparted to the youngest pupils as an introduction 
to life, I suppose that we are all agreed that, after 
all, the fundamentals necessary to education are read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic. To be able to read 
in an interesting manner is desirable, but it is sel- 
dom attained. We are forced, therefore, to be con- 
tent in most cases with the mere ability to read so 
as ourselves to understand what we read without 
the added accomplishment of giving pleasure by 
reading to others. This latter accomplishment I 
would secure for the pupil if I could without too 
great an expenditure of time and labor, but if the 
pupil had no special faculty for it, I would not 
waste time on it. He can at least read for himself, 
and, so long as he is content with that and does not 
offer to read to others, no great harm will be done. 

As it is not possible for everyone to have a ste- 
nographer and typewriter, it is still necessary to learn 
to write and spell. And I should prefer to have 
the student write in such a way as to show some 
individuality and personality and to spell so as not 
to show any such individuality. I confess that letters 
addressed to me in the modern vertical style where 
everyone's writing looks like every other one's writing 
never fail to give me a shudder, but I am not unreason- 
able, and, if the writing can be read, I can put up 
with it. That is the one thing necessary. If a pu- 
pil's writing is legible, I would not waste much time 
in cultivating a writing master's flourishes. 

And then, third, arithmetic. Everyone must un- 
derstand numbers and be able to add, subtract, mul- 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 249 

tiply, and divide, in order to deal with the humblest 
affairs of life. Doubtless all of the arithmetic might 
be learned without serious injury to the pupil, but 
there is a very considerable part of it that is of so 
little practical benefit that I would reduce the work 
to a minimum and make up for lack of breadth 
by practice and facility in calculations within the 
limits studied. Your pupils who are to graduate 
from the schools with no education beyond these 
three subjects are intended for the lowest employ- 
ments of life, and the teacher's aim should be to 
make them as skillful in these three acquirements 
as possible, and then let the pupils do the best they 
can with life. As we ascend in the character and 
extent of studies, the number of pupils diminishes. 
I have long had a conviction that too much time 
altogether is spent on the study of geography. It 
is a study which should not be taken up till the 
child is mature enough to be interested in it, and 
it can then be mastered in a short time to such 
an extent as is necessary or profitable. 

While the pupil is learning to read, write, and 
compute, he should be taught to notice things, to 
to see in them all that is to be seen; he should be 
taught to sing and to draw. Drawing should be 
taught as soon as possible, for it is a most useful 
art, and it can from the first be made a pleasure 
and not an irksome task. Whether the scholar is 
to spend much or little time in school, a knowledge 
of drawing will be of great value to him as he goes 
into the work of life. It is a convenience, a help, 
and a constant source of pleasure, and may be the 
means of revealing genius if it exists. 

May I be pardoned if I pause here to empha- 



250 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

size the importance of the work done in the coun- 
try school and in the lower grades of the city schools, 
above which so many scholars never go. At the best 
no great amount of learning can be acquired in 
these. Yet it is all the learning the scholars are 
to have, unless their taste for learning has been 
cultivated so that they will go on studying after 
the}' leave school. It is of the utmost importance 
that the teacher give the scholar impulse toward 
learning. If he does, who knows what the scholar 
may become. Abraham Lincoln, according to his 
own statement, never had more than one year of 
schooling. Elihu Burritt, master of fifty languages, 
acquired most of these without the aid of a teacher. 
The boy who has learned to read and who has been 
wisely supplied with knowledge interesting and suited 
to his age, will not generally stop learning when he 
leaves his humble school, and, if he has in him the 
making of a man, he will become one and will be 
heard from. When our boys and girls leave school 
at too young an age, do not, I pray you, let them 
go out discouraged and with failure written on their 
faces, but send them out with an impulse towards 
learning and with hope writ large on their faces. 

We have discovered in recent years that science 
is not less useful for discipline than language is; 
that science, as Spencer long ago proved, is not hos- 
tile to religion but a friend and ally of religion; 
that the old course of study in classics and mathe- 
matics is just as good for the development of power 
as it ever was; and yet that knowledge that is to 
be used, may be acquired profitably while one is get- 
ting culture and power ; that the man who is to be an 
electrical engineer does not need the same training 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 251 

as a doctor, nor the agriculturist, the same train- 
ing as the clergyman, and that, speaking educa- 
tionally only, if you have money enough to provide 
teachers in sufficient number, the variety of possible 
courses for a profitable educational career may be 
very numerous and dissimilar. 

When I look at the many large volumes of pa- 
pers and addresses printed annually by the National 
Education Association, papers and addresses which 
many of you must have heard, and, when I 
consider the vast amount of wisdom and new ideas 
annually provided for our teachers by educational 
speakers and journals, all of which the teachers of 
the country are expected to utilize in their practical 
work, I am sometimes a little fearful that our teach- 
ers may be in danger of being overwhelmed and 
buried under the ever-growing mountain of ideas 
piled up for their use. I am quite sure that in what 
I shall say I shall not add to the teacher's danger. 
I am not loaded with original ideas. I have in fact 
no pet theory of education. I have never made any 
attempt to invent one. I never shall make such at- 
tempt. What I know is that education of some kind 
is essential to the welfare of our people and the se- 
curity of our nation; that the education needed va- 
ries with different people and different conditions; 
and that what we want to get by education is not 
simply knowledge but power, not merely to cram 
a child with learning but to develop him into a man. 
As an ultimate product, we want to make the child, 
first, capable of self-support; second, capable of use- 
ful service; third, happy in his work and with in- 
tellectual resources sufficient to be happy in his lei- 
sure; fourth, a patriotic citizen; fifth, a good man. 



252 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

The vital question in education is, how can this 
be done? A moment's reflection upon the difficulty 
of the work in consequence of the almost unlimited 
variety of tendencies and aptitudes in children will 
show that the most important factor in making this 
work a success, whatever may be the educational 
theories in control, is the personality of the teacher. 

Some weeks ago I received from the editor of 
a magazine a series of questions, as I suppose many 
other people did, and among these questions was this 
in substance: What is the greatest need in educa- 
tion at the present time, and what the greatest hope 
for the future? To this I replied, that the greatest 
need is that the rising tide of education shall lift 
the millions of pupils to a higher moral elevation 
and that perhaps the greatest hope of the present is, 
that thousands of teachers recognize this need and 
are doing their best to bring about the desired re- 
sult; and the longer I think of this, the more con- 
vinced I am that the answer is a correct one. Knowl- 
edge is valuable; culture is valuable; but character 
is more valuable. What I wish to see is, not a uni- 
versal teaching in detail of what is right and what 
is wrong; that is impossible; but a universal teach- 
ing that what is right is to be done and that what 
is wrong is to be avoided. What we need is the 
cultivation of a moral attitude towards everything 
right and everything wrong. I can risk, the pupil's 
knowing which of two things is right and which is 
wrong, if I am certain that the pupil, when he knows 
what is right, will do it and will avoid the wrong. 
It needs no great amount of teaching to make the 
average student understand that theft, and graft, 
and murder, and hate, and lust, and revenge, are 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 253 

not as good as their opposites. The great thing, as 
it seems to me, is, to inspire in our sudents a high 
sense of honor that will lead them to do the right 
and avoid the wrong; and in ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred in all their experiences of life, they 
will never be at a loss to know which course is right 
and which course is wrong. While the inspiration of a 
high sense of honor and a sincere devotion to what 
is right, as opposed to what is wrong, is a substan- 
tial possibility that ought to appeal to the highest 
and best in every teacher, it is not so necessary for 
the teacher to burden himself with the details of a 
thousand rules, so as to make the pupil know what 
is right and what is wrong in every case, as it is 
to keep alive in the pupils the high resolve to do only 
what is right and honorable. You may not be able 
to teach the Bible in school; you may not be able 
to bring into operation any deep religious influence, 
but there is such an eternal distinction between right 
and wrong, that, even under these limitations, it 
is not necessary for our pupils to go out into the 
world ignorant as to what is right and what is wrong ; 
while it is absolutely possible that they shall go out 
into the world with their souls aglow with a deter- 
mination to do what is right, what is honorable, 
what is just and good. I would give more for a boy 
that scorns a mean act and whose sense of honor 
would defy the tempter in anything that is dishon- 
orable, leaving to his judgment the determination of 
what is honorable and what is dishonorable, than 
for a boy loaded down with specific rules as to what 
is right and what is wrong, and a soul that never has 
been stirred with a sense of personal honor, of per- 
sonal obligation, of personal duty. 



254 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

Let the great army of teachers in every field in 
which they fight inspire the pupils in their schools 
with a high sense of honor, a deep sense of obli- 
gation, a noble sense of duty, and, best of all, let 
these teachers be to their scholars an example of 
the eternal fidelity to right. 

One other thing is possible and, as it seems to me, 
desirable. This country to-day has its thoughts fixed 
mainly on money, how to get it, how to keep it, 
how to spend it. The very poor think of money be- 
cause they need it, and God knows that they do 
need it. The fairly paid mechanic has his mind fixed 
on money because he sees so much of it created by 
labor, and he gets, as he thinks, such an unfair 
portion. The well-to-do think of money because of 
old age coming, or children to be provided for, and 
the uncertainty of the future; and the immensely 
rich think of money because they are intoxicated 
with their success in accumulating, and sober thought 
has become practically impossible. It is not a happy 
state of things when the whole thought of a people 
is directed to laying up treasure on earth — and for 
them the Almighty is the dollar. Industry and econ- 
omy may well be encouraged and pupils may profit- 
ably be instructed in the practice of these virtues, 
but at least let us not encourage our pupils to think 
that the greatest object in life is to get money 
beyond our needs. Let us at least teach them that 
intellectual activity and morality and spirituality 
far transcend in importance superfluous wealth, and 
that, without these, life is no true life for either rich 
or poor. If we can inspire in our pupils a high 
sense of honor, a sincere desire to do right, and can 
keep them from becoming worshipers of mammon, 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 255 

and can send them out into the world with a real 
appreciation of the joys of spiritual and intellec- 
tual activity, we shall have accomplished the best 
work that it is possible for a teacher to do. To 
accomplish this, we teachers must be something like 
what we wish our scholars to be. 

There are many employments in which men and 
women engage with little or no other thought than 
that of securing the means of comfortable living; 
and the only test of the propriety of their choice 
is their success in getting a good livelihood by their 
vocation. Almost all kinds of what is called "busi- 
ness," agriculture, and, to some extent, the various 
mechanic arts, are of this nature. It matters little 
to the public in one sense whether a man in these 
employments is fitted for his work or not. If he 
is not, the public will not employ him; but what 
he fails to do others will do, and the wants of the 
public will be met in spite of his failure, while, so 
far as he himself is concerned, if he succeeds in 
making money, he has attained his sole object with- 
out any regard whatever to service actually rendered. 

There are other employments whose relation to 
the public welfare is so positive that no one is jus- 
tified in entering them solely from considerations 
of money to be gained. Such in a striking degree 
is the ministry of the gospel. Such in a hardly less 
degree is medicine ; such to a very large degree ought 
to be the law, a profession entrusted with more power 
than any other and practically controlling all three 
branches of our national government; and such in 
as eminent a degree as any, and perhaps more than 
any other, is teaching. To the persons engaged in 
all of these employments, the very highest interests 



256 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

are entrusted by their fellowmen, and any lack of 
ability, of skill, or of fidelity, may work not only 
evil, but irreparable evil. The scholar, intrusted 
to the care of an unfaithful or incompetent teacher, is 
losing the best years of his life ; is losing what he can 
never recover, opportunities to make rapid progress 
while the mind and the organs of speech are most re- 
sponsive to the will ; he is losing, too, what the repent- 
ant teacher, after he discovers the wrong done, can 
never bring back and restore to him. 

It is a grave responsibility, therefore, which one 
assumes when he becomes a teacher; and no one 
ought to become a teacher without a deep conscious- 
ness of this responsibility. No one ought to become 
a teacher unless he has good reason to suppose 
that he has the qualifications essential to success. Do 
I know enough to teach? If "yes," it is well so far. 
Knowledge is certainly the first essential. But some 
of the most learned men are the very worst teachers 
possible. They have no sense of perspective. They 
know so much that they forget how little it is pos- 
sible for other people to know. Can I teach others 
what I myself know? If "yes," is it well so far. 
But some persons, abundantly able to teach, do 
not actually do good work because of moral inertia. 
They have no keen sense of duty. Can I be satisfied 
only with the assurance that my pupils are learning 
all that I am trying to teach them; can I waken in 
them a mental and moral enthusiasm which will 
carry them along with me in the work? If "yes," 
it is well in all respects. The teacher who can an- 
swer all of these questions in the affirmative, who 
knows enough, and who can keep up his own en- 
thusiasm for knowledge and awaken the enthusiasm 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 257 

of his pupils so that neither teacher nor pupil will 
be satisfied with anything less than a full under- 
standing of the matters taught, has a genuine call 
to be a teacher, just as much of a call as ever a man 
had to preach; an eminent fitness for the high and 
noble work to be done. And he who has this call 
can enter on his work and toil at it year after year, 
sure that he is sowing good seed that will ultimately 
produce imperishable harvests; for he is working 
upon that which is immortal, and the impress of 
his work will never be removed. Nay, let me not use 
so mechanical a figure, rather let me say, he is 
breathing the breath of life anew into that which, 
though of divine origin, would without his efforts 
become a clod. 

And yet, important as is this work and grave 
as is its responsibility, most persons come to it with 
no special training in the art of teaching and are 
obliged to find out by experience both their own 
capacities and defects. I think it is only fair to 
all concerned that those persons who have made a 
trial of their ability to teach and have failed, should 
relinquish the employment and should seek some 
other occupation. This is due to parents and to schol- 
ars and to the state as well as to the self-respect 
of the teachers themselves. It is due also to all con- 
cerned that those who contemplate engaging in this 
occupation should avail themselves of the special 
professional instruction afforded by the normal 
schools, and that they should carry forward their 
general education as far as possible in the highest 
institutions of learning within their reach. Do the 
best we may, we shall always have a large number 
of teachers making unsuccessful experiments at 



258 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

teaching. It ought to be the aim of all in authority 
to keep this number down to as small a figure as 
possible, and to make the period of trial for those 
who will inevitably fail, as short as possible, and 
thus to reduce to a minimum what at the best is 
an evil of portentous dimensions. 

But there are all degrees of failure. There is the 
hopeless failure, of which the less said the better. 
There is the partial failure, the cause of which may 
be discovered and removed. I suppose one great 
object of these educational conventions is to help 
those teachers who have not made a perfect success 
of their work, who have partially failed, to help 
them to regain courage by grasping new ideas and 
adopting new methods, and thus to recover what they 
have lost and to make a success of their future work. 
It is in this way that the strong and successful are 
able to help their less fortunate, but perhaps not 
less able, professional brethren. It is well for teach- 
ers to have good theories, but they will learn more 
than theories by experience. 

Every successful teacher knows that his work 
is not machine work. Mind and heart must be ready 
at every moment to meet a new emergency, to deal 
with peculiar material in a new way. What will 
stimulate one pupil will discourage another. We 
all know that the method that works like a charm 
with one class will be only partially successful with 
another. And strange to say, we know that what 
are apparently the same characteristics will appear 
very different in different teachers, being attractive in 
one and repulsive in another. For example, a manner 
that is delightfully natural and graceful in one per- 
son, appears like affectation in another; what seems 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 259 

like the most charming naivety and simplicity in one 
person appears like weakness of intellect in another; 
and what appears like frankness and sincerity in one 
person seems like coarseness and want of refinement 
in another. In short the personality of everybody so 
affects what he says and does that you can seldom 
tell what will be the effect of one person's doing or 
saying a thing from knowing what was the effect 
when another person did or said it. I have known 
men of great learning, with minds well trained, with 
a good command of language, with no impediment of 
speech, with no repulsive personal features, and no 
deficiency of thought, in short with everything that 
seemed necessary to success, who yet invariably put 
into their subject and their hearers such an amount 
of sleepiness as placed it beyond the power of the kind- 
est and best-intentioned hearer to derive much benefit 
from what they said. And it was hard to say just 
how they did it. Another person with no better tal- 
ents, culture, or thoughts could produce a good ef- 
fect; while these men simply failed. The same is 
true to some extent with teachers. Their personality, 
that is, as Coleridge puts it, their individuality 
existing in itself but with a nature as a ground, must 
seriously affect the results of their teaching. Two 
teachers may have equal knowledge and equal earnest- 
ness of purpose, and the recitation room of the one 
may be a dreary task house and that of the other a de- 
lightful reception room, mainly because of the pres- 
ence or absence of some charm in the personality 
of the teacher. Of course I would not justify such 
an unreasonable preference for what is bright and 
winsome. The rightly constructed boy or girl would 
value knowledge for its own sake and look at that 



260 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

rather than at the teacher; but then who ever saw 
the rightly constructed boy or girl? So far as my 
knowledge extends, all boys and girls prefer to re- 
ceive instruction from teachers who are pleasant and 
winsome rather than from those who are not; and 
most boys and girls retain this peculiarity of taste 
as long as they live. There are people, you know, 
who actually think that tea and coffee taste better 
when served in delicate china than they do when 
taken in the ponderous earthenware of a railroad eat- 
ing room. I admit that I have that prejudice my- 
self both in favor of china cups and agreeable people. 

I have dwelt thus briefly upon the influence of 
the personality of the teacher, in order to impress 
on every teacher the great importance of making that 
personality as attractive or at least as agreeable as 
possible. The teacher owes it to himself as well to 
the scholar and the work to do this. 

Closely connected with the personality of the 
teacher, so closely as after a time to become insep- 
arable from it in the mind of the scholar, are a few 
things so evidently desirable that they need only to be 
named to be appreciated. Such are neatness of ap- 
parel, cleanliness of person, a sweet breath, natural 
if possible, but artificial if necessary, pleasantness of 
manner, order and cleanness of the school room. 
Different rooms in the same school are sometimes 
astonishingly unlike. One room will be of the right 
temperature and the air as sweet as the most sensi- 
tive could desire; another room will be unreasonably 
hot, and filled with more odors than have made the 
city of Cologne the theme of the poet, and not at 
all of a character to encourage mental labor or to 
furnish hope of long life to the miserable pupils 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 261 

there confined. There is, of course, more excuse for 
such a state of things in our climate than in a milder 
one; but we need good ventilation in every school 
room all the more because of the intense heat re- 
quired within to keep out the cold, because of the 
dryness of the air, and the lack of bathrooms in 
so many houses. 

Suppose now that the personal characteristics 
of the teacher and requirements for the school room 
are all right, what is the next thing to be noticed? 
Manifestly it is the speech of the teacher. A pleasant- 
faced teacher in a sweet comfortable school room may 
destroy all good impressions by the manner or mat- 
ter of her speech. I have often met people whose 
faces interested me until they began to speak, after 
which the feeling was one of repulsion. So I have 
met people whose faces did not interest me at all, 
who yet became delightful when they began to talk. 
I regard correctness of speech and true copiousness 
of diction, that is a real command of language, as 
among the most necessary qualifications of the 
teacher. 

I am addressing, as I suppose, teachers of every 
grade of schools in the state. There rises before 
me a vision of the immense and almost infinitely 
varied work which you have to do and which will 
never be done unless you do it. I see the multitude 
of school rooms all over the state, filled with scholars 
of various ages, various capacities, various degrees 
of refinement, various inherited qualities of mind and 
body, various prospects for life, and I recognize the 
fact that these children, so facile and pliant, are the fu- 
ture men and women who are to control the polit- 
ical, social, moral, intellectual, and religious life 



262 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

of the commonwealth. They have come from all 
kinds of homes, but they are now in your hands. 
They have come with all varieties of thought and 
speech and manners, but they are now in your hands. 
What will you do with them? That is the question. 
What may not you do with them and for them, if 
you will? If I were to say no more I am sure that 
you would all have some perception of the reason 
why I so distinctly emphasize the importance of cor- 
rectness of speech and richness of diction in the 
teacher. You would perceive that there is a moral 
reason for it. In every properly conducted school ex- 
ercise there are two things going forward at the same 
time, one seen, the other unseen; one purely intellec- 
tual, the other only partly so. The one may be a reci- 
tation no matter in what subject. The other is the kin- 
dling of that spirit which makes man ruler over nature 
and enables him to comprehend even the supernatural. 
The one may be accomplished by the clear exposition 
of the textbook; the other can be accomplished only 
by the teacher's becoming an example in speech and 
manner and thought of what the scholar's ideal 
should be: a perpetual guide and inspiration to all 
things beautiful and noble; and no teacher can be 
this whose speech is full of solecisms or improprieties, 
or whose vocabulary is meagre. For speech is the 
means by which the teacher exhibits his mind and 
heart to the scholar, just as certainly as the features 
of the face are the means by which he presents him- 
self as a recognizable individual; and it is not de- 
sirable that either should be uncouth or repulsive. 
It is said that in one of the leading countries of 
Europe, the teachers of the common schools are 
strictly charged "not to put new ideas into the heads 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 263 

of the scholars.*' New ideas might kindle in these 
contented hewers of wood and drawers of water as- 
pirations after something better, might lead them 
to question the excellence of a social or political sys- 
tem that uniformly gives all the good things to one 
set of men and their children, and all the hard and 
bad things to another set, and that set themselves. 
So the quiet of the state must be preserved at all 
hazards, and that quiet is secured by training the chil- 
dren of the ignorant and unskillful and unambitious 
to be ignorant and unskillful and unambitious. 

Now how different from all this is the work of the 
American teacher and the purpose of the American 
school. No matter where the school or what the 
scholars, the special business of the teacher is to put 
new ideas into the scholars' heads. The humblest 
scholar, whose home presents the least of worldly 
comfort, and who himself has the least promise of a 
high career, may yet have the brightest mind in the 
school, and neither family traditions nor family pov- 
erty will keep him from rising in the social scale, if 
the teacher is acute enough to see the possibilities and 
earnest enough to awaken aspirations for a more in- 
tellectual life. In not a few of our schools the habit 
of reading out of school is cultivated and the way thus 
opened for quickening even the dull intellects that 
illustrate too plainly the depressing influences of un- 
cultured ancestry. We want no classes in this coun- 
try who from generation to generation are to be kept 
down because they are illiterate and are to be kept 
illiterate in order that they may be kept down. A 
country that reckons among its brightest jewels the 
once poor country lads, Webster, Clay, Jackson, Lin- 
coln, and Grant, desires nothing so much as that new 

-18 



264 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

ideas shall be put into the minds of the young of every 
grade. Out of the low grade rooms and it may be the 
low grade schools will come some of the best scholars 
and most useful citizens of the state. The teacher, 
therefore, is not to be guided in his work by any con- 
sideration of the class of scholars or of the grade of 
school which he teaches. The scholars everywhere 
are possible candidates for every position which so- 
ciety or the state can bestow, and they must be 
trained, therefore, to meet the possibilities. If they 
come to school unrefined and coarse, they must not 
be permitted to leave school in the same condition. 
The teacher must make them refined and polite. If 
they come vulgar and illiterate in speech, the teacher 
must correct and purify their speech. Of course 
every teacher will try to impart knowledge, but with 
knowledge the scholar must get that without which 
even knowledge will be of little benefit, the ability to 
use it and to make oneself with it a power for good 
in the state. We expect to make a great deal more of 
some scholars than of others, but our rule should al- 
ways be to make as much as possible of all. Many a 
teacher, by discovering and developing genius in a 
pupil, has rendered the world a greater service than 
he could ever have rendered by any direct intellectual 
labor of his own. Some one asked Sir Humphry 
Davy what was his greatest discovery. The reply 
was : "The greatest discovery I ever made was 
Michael Faraday." Those who remember the kind- 
ness of Sir Humphry to the young and unknown Fara- 
day, and who call to mind the invaluable scientific 
work done by Faraday, and the line of eminent Eng- 
lish scientists who may be regarded as the intellectual 
children of Faraday, will be at no loss to discover the 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 265 

truth of Sir Humphry Davy's statement. The scholar 
often becomes greater than his teacher and yet owes 
all his success and greatness to the teacher's percep- 
tion of the scholar's powers, and his wise encourage- 
ment to make the most of them. Under these circum- 
stances there is placed on the American teacher even 
of the common school an obligation to do for his 
pupils much more than to insure their learning the 
subjects embraced in the course of study. It is an 
obligation to help the scholar to rise above his sur- 
roundings, out of the rut in which his ancestors have 
gone, out of the inferiority with which they may 
have been contented; in short, to render the scholar 
as fit as possible to adorn higher positions to which his 
intellectual powers and attainments may be able to 
lift him. The scholar must not only be supplied with 
proper intellectual food, but he must, if I may so 
express myself, become accustomed to an intel- 
lectual atmosphere and inhale freely the air of cul- 
ture. This the teacher must supply, must bring with 
him to the school, must be constantly surrounded by. 
Now one of the first things necessary, at once the 
means and the evidence of social elevation, is cor- 
rectness of speech. That this correctness of speech 
is not as general in either scholars or teachers as it 
ought to be, we all know. I might give any number 
of illustrations. I have in mind three teachers, two 
of them of no little prominence, who in the first sen- 
tence that I ever heard spoken by them, violated the 
most elementary principles of grammar. The most 
eminent of the three could not have spoken worse if 
he had said "I done it" or "I seen it." The curious 
thing about the case was, that in my subsequent ac- 
quaintance with these persons there was no recur- 



266 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

rence of such mistakes. How, then, did they happen 
to make such mistakes in the first sentence that passed 
their lips in my presence? Simply because they were 
taken by surprise and early habits of speech asserted 
themselves. If they had always been accustomed to 
speak correctly, they would have done so when off 
their guard as readily as when on their guard. They 
did not do so; and I have no doubt that their very 
good education rested on a substratum of violated 
grammar in early life. 

It will greatly benefit our schools, give them in all 
respects a better tone, if we can banish from them in- 
correctness of speech, barbarisms, slang, often very 
expressive but often, too, very silly, idioms learned 
in the streets and never thought about sufficiently to 
have their real character appreciated. Of course no 
teacher will intentionally exhibit these improprieties 
as characteristic of his speech, but he can not help 
using them in school, if he allows himself to use them 
out of school. Even in the use of new words, which 
may ultimately prove to be good and be accepted as 
a part of the language, the teacher, remembering that 
he is not acting for himself alone, but is setting an 
example sure to be followed by his pupils, should 
be very conservative. He of all men may wisely fol- 
low the advice of Pope. 

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; 
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: 
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 

"Evil communications corrupt good manners." Com- 
munications clothed in bad grammar, slang, low 
words, or incorrect language of any kind, are evil 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 267 

communications, and from a teacher are especially 
corrupting. 

The child that is trained at home to talk correctly, 
becomes in time practically master of the language 
and able to use it on all occasions with accuracy and 
precision, even if he has studied no treatise on gram- 
mar. And if, as he grows older, he becomes a stu- 
dent of other languages, and masters the general 
principles of grammar that govern them, he can make 
his own application of those principles to English 
as found in the authors whom he reads and in the 
language which he hears. In other words, for his 
knowledge of English grammar he may go to the same 
sources whence the first writers of English grammar 
obtained their knowledge, viz., the works of the best 
writers and speakers. I have known very learned 
scholars, whose English was of undoubted correct- 
ness, who had never studied English grammar. But 
for most people a knowledge of the recognized rules 
of English grammar is desirable, and this is much 
more easily gained by studying grammar than by 
studying the best authors. The properly trained 
child, however, who has always been required to speak 
correctly, will get along very well without this knowl- 
edge, because habit has made it easier for him to 
speak correctly than to speak incorrectly. 

But how is it with that much larger class who have 
never been trained to speak as they ought, whose 
fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends and 
associates, are seemingly combined in one grand 
scheme of barbarism to murder the English language, 
or at least to destroy all harmony, all concord, all 
beauty; and thus to give it a savage rather than a 
cultivated character? These live in a perpetual at- 



268 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

mosphere of bad grammar, caused by either the ig- 
norance or the carelessness of friends. Inevitably 
they catch the corruptions of speech of those around 
them. He must have not only a bright mind but also 
a strong will, who, growing up under such influences^ 
can, after acquiring a knowledge of grammar, weed 
out from his speech undesirable expressions, and so 
train himself that the words which he ought to use 
will always come to his lips in proper order and shape. 
His experience will be like the effort to cultivate a 
piece of ground once sown with Canada thistles. No 
matter what you plant or how carefully you till, the 
thistles will come up, and at the most unexpected 
moment show themselves. At last you think them 
dead. But relax your efforts, withdraw your watch- 
fulness, and you will soon learn that they are not 
dead, but as ready as ever to dispute the ground with 
the wholesome plants you wish to cultivate. So the 
scholar whose early home training or want of train- 
ing has allowed all kinds of solecisms to garnish his 
speech, will find, when he attempts to repair the evil, 
that knowing what is correct speech is not the same as 
speaking correctly and that when he would do good 
evil is present unto him. He will find that without 
perpetual watchfulness, the undesirable idioms of his 
early speech will crop out in conversation and in pub- 
lic addresses alike. Now, if this is true of the scholar^ 
who has really learned what is right, and who is really 
anxious to do what is right, what can we expect of 
that vastly larger class who, at best, never ac- 
quire more than a formal knowledge of grammatical 
principles and who never are required to make their 
speech conform to these principles? Such a scholar 
might know every principle which Goold Brown has 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 269 

incorporated in his monumental Grammar of Gram- 
mars, and still be a perfect barbarian in his speech. 
For grammar differs from many other studies in this 
respect that its chief value lies in its application. 
It differs from algebra, for instance. A girl studies 
algebra, learns all about equations with several un- 
known quantities. Possibly at some future day she 
may teach this. But there is very little probability 
that she will make any use of it otherwise. Knowl- 
edge which is good for nothing except to be taught is 
good for nothing as knowledge and is not worth teach- 
ing. Yet no one would say that the girl was not bene- 
fited by studying algebra. The benefit for her in the 
exceptional case supposed, lies not in the knowledge 
she has gained but in the discipline of getting it. Her 
reasoning faculties have been trained; her mind has 
been quickened ; her whole intellect brightened by the 
study. 

Take, too, even the case of geography supposed by 
many people to be the proper intellectual food for the 
youthful mind for a series of five or six years in 
school. What use will most of the scholars ever make 
of their knowledge of geography? It is pleasant and 
certainly desirable to know all about the surface of 
the earth. In the broadest sense the knowledge is 
valuable. But how much use will most scholars make 
of it? More or less according to circumstances, but 
in most cases very little. But now how is it with 
grammar? Here we have a study, the chief benefit 
from which is not gained in the process of studying,, 
nor does it consist in the possession of the knowledge 
gained by study, but in the application and use of 
that knowledge. I am speaking, of course, of English 
grammar for an English-speaking people. Its value 



270 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

is not all summed up and secured when the child 
leaves school, but it is practical and necessary through 
life. From the first word of greeting in the morning to 
the last good-night, with friends, with strangers, with 
the busy world, in the exercise of one's vocation, in 
society, in professional speech, always and everywhere 
a practical application of the principles of grammar 
is a necessity. And it is only as grammar is thus 
forever applied that it has for the English student a 
real and permanent value. It is only as the science 
is carried forward into an art that it rewards its 
learners. Now the practical trouble with us is that 
we are satisfied with teaching grammar or language 
or whatever else you choose to call it, as a science and 
that we so rarely go forward and teach it as an art. 
Composition does not do it, for in composition there 
is as much time for reflection, and choice of expres- 
sions, and consultation of authorities as one needs; 
the eye aids the mind in discriminating, and a final 
revision of errors is possible ; so that many a man can 
write correctly who never does and probably never 
can uniformly talk correctly. What is needed, how- 
ever, is the ability to speak correctly, not merely when 
we are on the alert and watchful of our speech, but 
always and under all circumstances ; and the only way 
in which we can get this ability is by cultivating a 
uniform habit of speaking as we ought. 

Public school teachers are or ought to be the dis- 
ciplined soldiers of civilization, fighting against a con- 
stant reactionary tendency to barbarism in speech. 
Emerson defined heroism as "a military attitude of 
the soul towards all evil." I like the definition. So 
the teacher must have a military attitude of soul 
towards all bad grammar. He must fight it wherever 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 271 

it shows its unseemly form. Let us see what he can 
do to overcome the foe. First of all, as I have shown, 
he can be an example to his scholars. We all know 
the power of example. How it tells on character! 
What a power it is in an upright, manly life! How 
necessary it is that we should practice what we preach 
if we are to exert any influence by our preaching, or 
by our teaching. We may change a single word and 
say with Portia, "it is a good teacher that follows his 
own instructions ; I can easier teach twenty what were 
good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow 
my own teaching." But that is the very thing that 
the teacher must do. He must follow his own teach- 
ing. He must talk according to the laws of grammar 
which he teaches. If he does, the scholar whose home 
influences in respect to language are not of the best, 
will notice the difference between the language heard 
at home and that heard at school; he will recognize 
the superiority of the latter; he will feel that to the 
teacher the observance of the rules of grammar is a 
matter of importance; and that, as a consequence, 
the teacher has a nobler speech than that with which 
he has hitherto been content; he will wish to secure 
such speech for himself, and he will secure it if he is 
not in the depths of his nature what old Thomas H. 
Benton, so long a senator from Missouri, would have 
called a vulgarian. 

A person of mature years, and possessing any 
sensibility, but without culture, will become con- 
strained in good society, being conscious that the 
words which at home drop so freely from his lips, are 
not suited to the atmosphere in which he is now 
placed. The difference between the Chicago girl and 
the Boston girl in their mode of expressing thought 



272 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

has been for some time past a favorite topic of the 
newspaper wits, the western girl being usually repre- 
sented as frankly coarse and the Boston girl as ab- 
surdly refined. Neither of these is desirable, of course. 
Unite the frankness and the refinement in due propor- 
tions and you have the most charming manners pos- 
sible. In the presence of people possessing these 
manners all tendency alike to coarseness and to affec- 
tation of refinement will be repressed. So the scholar 
who has any disposition to improve will grow careful 
of his speech in the presence of the teacher who never 
allows himself to be careless and incorrect in speech. 
The living teacher can thus exert an influence more 
powerful than any that can be exerted by all the Eng- 
lish classics, the reading of which is so much insisted 
on in these days as a method of teaching English. For 
the worst of the mischief is that one can rise from the 
reading of the purest and most classical English au- 
thor, and immediately begin to talk in the illiterate 
way to which he has become accustomed. If the au- 
thor, such a master of pure vigorous English prose for 
example as Professor Huxley, or of prose, eloquent 
and poetical, without being oratory, as Frederic Har- 
rison, or such masters of style in general as Southey 
and De Quincey, — if any of these authors of such 
works as we put into our students' hands as models, 
were to stand, a living man, in the presence of the 
scholar, the latter would blush at the thought of 
abusing language in his presence. The teacher must 
take the place of the living author, not of his book. 
He must make the scholar speak as he ought, not 
merely make him know how to speak as he ought. 

In the second place, it is not enough that the schol- 
ars be taught to parse and analyze and give rules. It 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 273 

is not enough that they can pick correct speech to 
pieces, and tell all about its construction and why it 
was made so. Synthesis and not analysis is the end 
we seek, to learn how to put words into correct sen- 
tences, and not how to take correct sentences apart 
and explain the relations of the words. The two 
processes are not identical, though they are mutually 
helpful. One is theory; the other, practice. One is 
science ; the other, art. Now, as I believe that the best 
home training is that which begins early, the best 
home culture that which starts a child right and 
makes him speak correctly when he is young, instead 
of waiting till his speech is so full of errors as to make 
their eradication almost a violence to nature, so I be- 
lieve that the school training in language and applied 
grammar should begin down in the lower rooms, and 
should be entirely practical. It should consist simply 
in teaching the children how to talk. They should be 
made to speak correctly, whether they speak little or 
much. Young children are usually ready to talk when 
they have a chance. They will with little encourage- 
ment give an abundance of examples of the idioms and 
peculiarities of speech to which they are accustomed. 
But as they have caught these peculiarities from 
others, so they will be just as quick in catching the 
proper forms of expression if these are faithfully 
urged upon them. Of course the little child is not 
going to remember a correction as a grown person 
would. It will have to be line upon line and precept 
upon precept; here a little and there a great deal ac- 
cording to the degree of illiteracy exhibited. But the 
child, thus trained year after year, in room after 
room, class after class, will be nearly certain to be- 
come a master of good English. In pursuance of this 



274 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

object every teacher in the school should be a teacher 
of grammar, every recitation should be a practical 
exercise in grammar or in language, if you like the 
expression better. Correctness of speech should be re- 
quired everywhere and under all circumstances. Such 
a method would be sure to banish entirely from the 
speech of our most advanced scholars the solecisms 
which teachers now know to be very common. It 
would introduce good English into translations that 
now even in colleges are too frequently but inelegant 
and lawless suggestions of the meaning of the original. 
It would open the way for rhetorical work of a high 
character in which beauty and strength could be 
studied as well as clearness. In short, it would give 
the pupil the complete mastery of the essential prin- 
ciples of effective speech without which all artistic 
work in literature is impossible. 

. It may be objected to this plan that such a course 
would make mere expression everything and the ac- 
quisition of knowledge nothing; that little progress 
in recitations could be made if every error were noted 
and corrected on the instant. I do not think so. On 
the contrary, after a time the progress of the class 
will be more rapid under this system than under the 
careless neglect which now too widely prevails. The 
discipline gained by the pupil under the constant 
necessity of being correct in his way of speaking will 
help him to be correct in what he says; and the lan- 
guage of teacher and pupil will serve the purpose for 
which language exists, the communication of thought. 
Teacher and pupil will understand each other readily 
and quickly because both speak the same dialect and 
that a correct one. 

But were it otherwise, I would much prefer that 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 275 

a child should know less, and be able to make a proper 
and pleasant use of what knowledge it has, than that 
it should know more and yet disgrace itself by the 
grossest illiteracy every time it attempts to speak. 
The more one knows and the more opportunities one 
has had for securing culture, the more disgraceful be- 
come solecisms in speech. 

As a further means of promoting correctness of 
speech, special exercises in conversation would be 
most serviceable. In such exercises, let the class be 
taught to watch for and detect improper expressions 
and they will grow very keen in detecting them, first, 
in the speech of others and, then, as a necessary conse- 
quence, in their own. Let the teacher talk to the class, 
purposely using such incorrect expressions as he has 
noticed in the conversation of the scholars, it being 
understood that he is to make mistakes for them to 
correct during this exercise but not at other times. 
The critical faculty of the pupil will thus be culti- 
vated, and the necessary testing of actual speech at 
once by the principles of grammar will soon produce 
fruits in the improved language which he himself will 
use. And the scholars are quite likely to become deep- 
ly interested in such an exercise. It is as good as a 
game of tag. I am certain that such practical work as 
this, begun early and persisted in, tedious and trying 
to the patience though it often would doubtless be, 
would do more to secure accuracy of speech than all 
the analysis of compound complex sentences with 
their extensive nomenclature of elements; or all the 
formal parsing such as schoolhouses have echoed with 
for a century past — and I do not by any means under- 
rate the value of analysis and parsing. 

And is not the result worth trying for? What is 



276 THE V/ORK OF THE TEACHER 

more important in education than correct habits of 
speech, the ability to say what you think? What more 
pitiable than the want of them? In conversation, in 
business, in society, in extempore speaking, in all 
genuine speech that is not reading, the bad habits 
which a man may have formed are sure to appear and 
to master him. Knowing what is right and yet con- 
scious that he is failing to express himself in the 
right way, he is sure to become embarrassed and to 
appear awkward by the consciousness that he is dis- 
playing his want of such culture and training as 
good society ought to require. And if the case be that 
of a lady, it is still worse. What can be more painful 
than to hear vulgar idioms and bad grammar dropping 
from the lips of one, who in her feelings, her position, 
her character, her knowledge, everything but her 
speech, is a lady. Is not the result — the purification 
of speech in our scholars — worth trying for, even if, as 
a consequence, the scholars should not learn quite so 
much of some other things, should not be able to tell 
the distance from Trebizond to Timbuctoo, nor the 
year in which Napoleon became First Consul? Is not 
the work worth trying for even if, as a consequence, 
the teachers should not be able to make out so many 
reports and our school statistics should in conse- 
quence be slightly diminished? 

But it is not grammatical correctness of speech 
alone which is desirable in the teacher. I have also 
indicated true copiousness of diction as being neces- 
sary. A teacher's vocabulary may be full of large 
words without his diction being rich. What the teach- 
er needs first of all is a vocabulary which, whether 
large or small, will enable him to make his meaning- 
clear to the scholars. He must, therefore, not only 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 277 

know the words that the scholars know, but must 
know what words the scholars understand so as to use 
them and not others. And in no other thing is there 
-so much danger of making mistakes as in this. What 
is very familiar to us we are disposed to think every- 
body must know. Much valuable instruction is wasted 
simply because the language used is not understood. 
If we could look into the minds of our hearers when 
we are speaking, we should often be surprised to learn 
that they do not know the meaning of many words 
which we suppose that they understand as a matter of 
course. 

A young clergyman who had delivered a discourse 
in the place of an aged brother minister, requested the 
opinion of the latter respecting the sermon. "Oh," 
said he plainly, "many of the words you used were 
beyond the comprehension of your hearers. Thus, for 
instance, the word 'inference,' perhaps not half of my 
parishioners understand its meaning." "Inference, 
inference," exclaimed the young minister, "why every 
one must understand that." "I think you will find it 
not so," replied the old minister. "There's my clerk, 
now ; he prides himself upon his learning and in truth 
is very intelligent. We will try him. Zachariah, my 
brother here wishes you to draw an inference. Can 
you do it?" "Why, I am pretty strong," said the clerk, 
"but Johanadab, the coachman, is stronger than I. 
I'll ask him." Zachariah went out a few minutes to 
look after the coachman and returned. "Johanadab 
says he never tried to draw an inference, sir, but he 
reckons his horses can draw anything the traces will 
told." The anecdote is instructive. It is not difficult 
to draw an inference from it. The old minister had 
learned by long experience the range of his people's 



278 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

knowledge and the extent of their vocabulary; while 
the young minister thoughtlessly supposed that words 
which were familiar to him must be equally so to his 
hearers. As a consequence he preached over the heads 
of his hearers and not at all to their profit. 

The vocabulary of the teacher should include so 
much of the vocabulary of the scholar as is respectable 
but it should include many words that are not in the 
scholar's vocabulary, but which ought to be, and 
which in order to become a part of the scholar's vo- 
cabulary must be explained when used, and occasion 
for using which by the scholar must be made by the 
teacher. Our vocabularies do not mean the words we 
understand; they mean the words we use. It is only 
when one uses a word and makes it his servant that 
it enters into his vocabulary. 

There is something ennobling in language that is 
clear, pure, expressive, and vigorous; language of 
which one need not be ashamed in any place, in any 
society; language that is always so choice that no 
new principle of selection is necessary in public 
speech. In the school room the language should be 
neither studiedly puerile nor ostentatiously grand; 
it should be respectful of the intelligence alike of the 
speaker and the hearer. I hope no one will suppose 
that I deem correct language and a good diction the 
most essential things in life. I know there are more 
important things. A good man who is illiterate is un- 
speakably better than a bad man with the most cul- 
tured speech. The man who said "I seen my duty and 
I done it," may, for anything I know, have been a very 
heroic person ; but we should not think the less of him 
if he had expressed himself in correct speech. I 
know that the purest souls may unconsciously 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 279 

through ignorance, murder their native tongue as they 
address either their fellow-beings or their God. They 
have never learned better ; and, using the best within 
their knowledge, they are not degraded thereby. I 
am not finding any fault with these. But I do not wish 
the next generation of scholars to grow up like them. 
I am seeking to deepen the interest in your minds, 
teachers, respecting the future appearance, bearing, 
influence of the scholars under your care. They are 
soon to take the places of their parents, and our 
places when after a few years we shall have passed 
away. They are to determine the character of the 
civilization of the Northwest. No more docile pupils 
than these can be found in the world. They are quick to 
comprehend, wide-awake, and earnest to learn, ready 
to catch at anything new and interesting, and most 
ready of all to accept guidance from their teacher as 
the one who knows what is right. I ask you, shall the 
teacher in the presence of these scholars be content to 
be merely a day laborer, earning so much a day by a 
routine attention to school duties, geography, history, 
arithmetic; hearing recitations and, it may be, im- 
parting knowledge, while he is profoundly ignorant 
as to all that furnishes any evidence of real culture 
in the scholar and does not know whether the process 
of education is really fitting for life or not? If there 
are teachers who are content simply to go through 
the motions of teaching and who never stop to investi- 
gate the results of their work, I pray them either to 
reconstruct their plans of work and their theories of 
duty, or else to withdraw forever from a profession in 
which they are likely to do but little good, and from 
places that would be better filled by others. But I re- 
joice to believe that most of our teachers are not of 

-19 



280 THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 

this character; that they are earnest to do for their 
scholars all that they can; and that nothing is more 
welcome to them than to be told how they can improve 
the work they are doing. 

The teaching of the various branches of knowledge 
is the perfecting of the various parts of a curiously 
intricate machine. Practical culture in language for 
which I plead, is putting the various parts of the 
machine together and making it possible for them to 
fulfill their mission. In other words it is the unifica- 
tion of knowledge and culture, the polishing and per- 
fecting of the complete man in addition to the devel- 
opment of the separate faculties, like perception, 
imagination, and reason. Begun in the early years of 
school life by the teacher, it can be carried forward 
and completed only by the study of genuine literature, 
by mixing, so to speak, in the world's best society, as 
Milton learned of the great poet of Italy, and Web- 
ster's sublimest eloquence speaks of his familiarity 
with Milton. 

I have tried to set before you, not so much what 
it is important for you to do, as what it is important 
for you to be — ladies and gentlemen of refinement and 
taste, exhibiting these qualities in your manners and 
in your speech, and tacitly at least, and outspoken- 
ly when necessary, demanding these qualities in those 
committed to your care. Do I not know how much 
you have to contend with? Do I not know what in- 
fluences surround many of the children of whom you 
are expected to make intelligent scholars and refined 
ladies and gentlemen? I know it all; and I sympa- 
thize most heartily with you in the difficulties and dis- 
couragements of your work. But be yourselves what 
you ought to be, an example to your scholars; that at 



THE WORK OF THE TEACHER 281 

least you can all be. Then do what you can ; and such 
is the nature of the human mind as it develops, that 
more and more as light euters it, not alone the one 
thing or the other that you have been trying to teach 
by school-work, or by precept, or by example, will be 
accepted and cherished by the pupil, but there will 
come to him some sense of the beauty of symmetry in 
culture, in character, in development, and with it an 
earnest longing to escape from whatever is low and 
degrading in character, in thought, and in speech ; and 
there will come at the same time an equally earnest 
determination to be and to appear all that you in your 
long and seemingly unsuccessful efforts have sought 
to make him. And when that hour comes, you, the 
faithful teacher, will have your reward ; and, if there 
be many scholars who have been inspired by you to 
seek the best things, what a fullness of reward will 
be yours! Toil on, then, teachers, no matter how 
humble may be your sphere, or how seemingly hopeless 
the difficulties which you have to encounter. That 
Divine Being, whose eye notes the fall of a sparrow, 
is not indifferent to the faithful labors of the humblest 
of his intelligent creatures. Somewhere — I know not 
where nor when — it may be just where you are now, it 
may be in higher fields of labor to which your ability 
and success may cause you to be called, but some- 
where, here or beyond, He will give to every one ac- 
cording as his work shall be. And I am sure that it 
is as true in the realm of intellectual as in that of 
spiritual evangelization, that "they that be wise, shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they 
that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever 
and ever." 



GEORGE WASHINGTON* 

We are assembled on this occasion to do honor to 
George Washington, the "Father of his Country," 
and, in his own day, justly declared to be "first in war, 
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
men." 

It is eminently fitting that we should thus honor 
the memory of Washington, for the land in which we 
live with all its blessings of liberty and peace, is 
in a large measure a heritage received by us from the 
patriotism and wisdom of Washington. 

Even a British statesman, Lord Brougham, once 
declared that until time shall be no more, a test of 
the progress which our race has made in wisdom and 
virtue, will be derived from the veneration paid to 
the immortal name of Washington. 

It will not be out of place and certainly can not 
be without interest, to present in a condensed form 
some of the leading events of Washington's life, for 
though we all know something of Washington, it may 
be fairly doubted whether any of us are as familiar 
with his career as we are with that of some of the 
brilliant generals and statesmen who have lived in 
more recent years. 

The home of the Washington family was on 
Bridge's Creek, near the banks of the Potomac in 

*Delivered in Dania Hall, Minneapolis, February 22nd, 1896. 



284 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Virginia; and here George, the oldest of six children 
by his father's second marriage, was born on the twen- 
ty-second of February, 1732, one hundred sixty-four 
years ago. His father was a prosperous man, the 
owner of a number of estates in Virginia. He sent his 
oldest son, Lawrence, the fruit of a previous marriage^ 
to be educated in England. But no such education 
was provided for George. Indeed, his father died when 
George was only eleven years old, and George was 
left to the care of his mother, whom we all have heard 
of as "Mary, the mother of Washington." She was a 
wise and good mother, and I doubt not that Washing- 
ton owed more of his success in life to her counsels 
and training than he did to the schools. At all events,. 
it is pleasant to know that she lived forty-six years 
after her husband's death, lived to witness the tri- 
umphs of her son, and did not die until he was seated 
in the presidential chair. It is always to me a satis- 
faction when a good father and a good mother who 
have made sacrifices for their children and have wise- 
ly trained them, are permitted to live long enough to 
see their children come to honor and so to taste the 
fruits of their own labors. 

George Washington never went to college, never 
went to an academy or high school. The graduates of 
our Minneapolis high schools know ten times as much 
as Washington ever learned at school. Heading, writ- 
ing, and arithmetic, the three R's, were about all that 
he got at school ; but he subsequently had some special 
instruction in geometry, trigonometry, and surveying, 
and ultimately he adopted surveying as his profession. 
This choice of a profession had its direct bearing on 
his subsequent career. It led him into the woods of 
Virginia, it opened to his vision new and inviting land 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 285 

further west than the existing settlements, in which 
new lands he made large investments; it made him 
acquainted with the Indians, their customs and spirit, 
and mode of warfare; it made him familiar with the 
country near the junction of the Allegheny and Mo- 
nongahela rivers at what is now the city of Pittsburg, 
a region on which both France and England had 
set covetous eyes, and in which later on the owner- 
ship) was to be decided by gage of battle. The knowl- 
edge of the region and of the best methods of ad- 
vancing the English interests, made Washington an 
almost indispensable assistant to every British officer 
who was engaged in saving that country from the 
French. He himself was in command of the Virginia 
forces in one expedition ; but he was compelled by the 
French to surrender. No disgrace, however, attached 
to that. He was subsequently an aide to General 
Braddock, and was a participant in that fearful 
massacre which has always been known as Braddock's 
defeat, the description of which I can even now recall 
as one of the horrors of my childhood. But Washing- 
ton escaped. He had two horses shot under him and 
his clothes were pierced by four bullets. It is related 
that "many years afterwards, when he visited the re- 
gion on a peaceful mission, an old Indian came to see 
him as a wonder. He had, he said, leveled his rifle so 
often at Washington without effect, that he became 
persuaded that he was under the special protection of 
the Great Spirit and gave up the attempt. In Brad- 
dock's defeat, only four officers out of eighty-six on the 
English side were left alive and unwounded. Wash- 
ington himself in a letter to his brother attributed 
"his protection beyond all human probability or ex- 
pectation, to the all-powerful dispensations of Provi- 



286 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

dence." Samuel Davies, in his pulpit in Hanover 
County, urging men to enlist for the service, made 
this truly prophetic allusion to Washington's escape 
from death : "I may point to that heroic youth, 
Colonel Washington, whom I can not but hope Provi- 
dence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for 
some important service to his country." Who of us 
can doubt that it was so? 

In January, 1759, Washington was married to 
Mrs. Martha Custis, of the White House, County of 
New Kent. She was born the same year as Washing- 
ton ; at twenty-four was the widow of a wealthy land- 
ed proprietor, and was married at twenty-seven to 
Washington. She was worthy to be the wife of Wash- 
ington. The story of the courtship has often been 
told. "The first sight of the lady, at least in her wid- 
owhood, by the gallant Colonel, was on one of his mili- 
tary journeyings during the last campaign of the old 
French war." He was speeding to the council at Wil- 
liamsburg, on a special message to stir up aid for the 
camp, when, crossing the ferry over the Samunkey, a 
branch of York River, he was waylaid by one of the 
residents of the region, who compelled him, by the in- 
exorable laws of old Virginia hospitality, to stop for 
dinner at his mansion. The energetic officer, intent 
on despatch, was reluctant to yield a moment from his 
affairs of state, but there was no escape of such a guest 
from such a host. Within the house, he found Mrs. 
Custis, whose attractions reconciled even Washington 
to delay. He not only stayed to dine, but he passed 
the night a charmed guest, with his friendly entertain- 
er. The lady's residence, fortunately, was in the 
neighborhood of Williamsburg, and, a soldier's life 
requiring a prompt disposition of his opportunities, 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 287 

the Colonel pressed his suit with vigor, and secured 
the lady at once in the midst of her suitors. He cor- 
responded with her constantly during the remainder 
of the campaign — he is said not to have been a very 
good hand at spelling, but perhaps he used a dic- 
tionary carefully when he was writing to her — at all 
events the wedding took place soon after with great 
eclat at the bride's estate at the White House. The 
honeymoon was the beginning of a new and pacific era 
of Washington's hitherto troubled military life." 

About this time he was elected a member of the 
House of Burgesses — as we should say he was elected 
to the Legislature. An incident is related of his ex- 
perience while a member. "The Speaker, by a vote of 
the House, having been directed to return thanks to 
him for his eminent military services, at once per- 
formed the duty with warmth and eloquence. Wash- 
ington rose to express his thanks, but like many other 
truly great men he was never a ready speaker, and he 
became too embarrassed to utter a syllable. 'Sit 
down, Mr. Washington,' was the courteous relief of 
the gentleman who had addressed him, 'your modesty 
equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of 
any language I possess.' " 

Washington was constantly in attendance at the 
debates of the House, it being a maxim with him 
through life to execute punctually and thoroughly 
every task which he undertook. 

He shortly after took up his abode at Mount Ver- 
non, and from this place he wrote to a correspondent 
in London : "I am now, I believe, fixed at this seat with 
an agreeable partner for life, and I hope to find more 
happiness in retirement than I ever experienced 
amidst the wide and bustling world." For fifteen 



288 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

years Washington lived the life of a country gentle- 
man at Mount Vernon, undisturbed by wars or great 
public duties. His life at this time is thus described: 
"The daily life of the gentleman planter is all the 
while going on, the crops of wheat and tobacco getting 
in, which were to be embarked beneath his eye on the 
broad bosom of the Potomac on their voyage to Eng- 
land and the West Indies." So well established was 
his repute as a producer, that a barrel of flour bearing 
his brand was exempted from inspection in the ports 
of the West Indies. Cordial hospitality was going on 
within doors, and wholesome country sports without. 
He had hounds for the fox hunt; there were deer to 
be killed in his woods, abundant wild fowl on his 
meadows in the season, and fisheries in the river at his 
feet ; and that there might be no falling into rusticity, 
came the annual state visits, when he was accompanied 
by Mrs. Washington, to the notable picked society at 
the capitals, Williamsburg and Annapolis. It was a 
hearty, generous life, fitted to breed manly thoughts 
and good resolutions against the coming time when 
he should again assume the sword. 

"In fine, look upon Washington at this or any other 
period of his life, we ever find him industrious, al- 
ways useful ; his activity and influence radiating from 
the center of domestic life, and his private virtue, to- 
the largest interests of the world." 

But the peace of Washington's life at Mount Ver- 
non was soon to be broken, and the gentleman planter 
was soon to be called away from his wheat and tobacco 
crops, to engage in the service of his country. The 
people of the American colonies had been the loyal 
subjects of the English crown for more than one hun- 
dred forty years, a period longer than that of our ex- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 289 

istence as a nation to-day. They had stood by the 
mother country through good report and evil report. 
They had fought Indians and French alike whenever 
the policy of the mother country had made it neces- 
sary. He had helped to wrest Canada from the 
French and give it to the English. They had faced 
the dangers and borne the burdens of Indian wars, 
too often laughed at by the supercilious British regu- 
lars. They had no thought of independence so long 
as England had been decently just in her treatment 
of them. But when England began to impose direct 
taxes upon them while denying them all representa- 
tion in Parliament, the spirit of patriotism at once 
showed itself. Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, led 
the way to the thought of independence. Patrick 
Henry, in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, led 
the way in the South. Washington was present when 
Henry delivered his terribly eloquent address — 
"Give me liberty or give me death." The government 
4i George III was in that day just as ready to play 
the bully towards a weak opponent as the Salisbury 
government of England is to-day. It tried it with 
our fathers. Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Yorktown, and 
Independence were the result. God forbid that they 
should try it again, but, if they do, the country- 
men of Washington will not be found wanting. 

The Second Continental Congress met at Phila- 
delphia in May, 1775. The battle of Lexington had 
been fought on the 19th of the previous month. Ed- 
mund Burke three weeks earlier had made his great 
speech in the British Parliament urging conciliation 
towards America. The British were in possession 
of Boston, and an army of Americans, small but reso- 
lute band, had gathered about Boston. The army 



290 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

must have a commander-in-chief. On the fifteenth 
of June, just two days before the battle of Bunker 
Hill, Washington was unanimously chosen by Con- 
gress as the commander-in-chief of the army. He 
accepted the appointment with both modesty and 
reluctance — modesty because as he said "he thought 
himself with the utmost sincerity unequal to the 
command he was honored with"; reluctance because 
"he felt the full force of the sacrifices of ease and 
happiness he was making, and the new difficulties 
he was inevitably to encounter." 

I have not taken pains to examine into the mo- 
tives of Congress in making George Washington com- 
mander-in-chief. But I suspect that Congress was 
quite as much influenced by the desire to commit 
Virginia heartily and finally to the cause as it was 
by its estimate of Washington's military genius. In- 
deed, he had up to this time, so far as I remember, 
in all his military experience, never won a battle, 
and had simply come out of one defeat after another 
without disgrace. It is sometimes almost as bad to 
be commanded by an officer who is uniformly un- 
lucky as to be commanded by one who is incapable. 
And Washington certainly had been unlucky in his 
military experience. But he knew something of war; 
he had commanded soldiers in battle; best of all he 
was a prominent and highly honored citizen of Vir- 
ginia. The war at the moment was in New England. 
The British government was doing all in its power 
to pacify the other provinces, while subduing Massa- 
chusetts. The appointment of Washington made it 
sure that Virginia would stand by Massachusetts, 
that South and North would fight against England 
as the common foe. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 291 

But Congress builded better than they knew even, 
when they chose George Washington commander-in- 
chief. The Revolutionary war through its long and 
weary seven or eight years, never brought to light 
a soldier who, all things considered, was as fit for 
the command as Washington. Arnold was brave 
but he became a traitor. Putnam was a good fighter 
but ignorant and narrow. Gates was lucky, but con- 
ceited and weak. Lee had his good points, but he 
was jealous and unreasonable. The man who comes 
the nearest perhaps of any in ability as shown by 
his career is the Rhode Island blacksmith and Quaker 
preacher, Nathaniel Greene. But while General 
Greene did nobly and deserved the high praise of 
Washington and the thanks of Congress, both of 
which he received, it may well be doubted whether 
he could have filled Washington's place as command- 
er-in-chief successfully, while there can be no doubt 
at all as to his inability to render the distinguished 
services which Washington rendered after the war, 
and which, while they were no part of his duties 
as commander-in-chief, resulted from the reputation 
he had gained and the confidence he had inspired 
in the people during his service as commander. Un- 
doubtedly Washington was the one man who was 
fitted to conduct the Revolutionary war to a success- 
ful conclusion, jnst as Lincoln seems to have been 
the one man fitted to lead us to victory and union 
in our great Civil War. 

Washington was not probably a great general 
as the victor at Marengo was a great general. But 
Napoleon, if he won at Marengo, finally had his 
Waterloo. If Washington did not win at any Ma- 
rengo, it is also true that he never had a Waterloo. 



292 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

He planned wisely. He waited. He wearied the 
enemy out. He never risked his country's future 
irremediably on a single battle. He was not in the 
ordinary sense a brilliant general, but his long war 
closed with Yorktown and it was the British army 
under Cornwallis which surrendered to Washington. 
"It was the virtual termination of the war, the crown- 
ing act of a vast series of military operations planned 
and perfected by the genins of Washington." 

The closing years of the war were not marked 
by great military activity, but several events occurred 
which showed in a striking light the greatness of 
Washington. In May, 1782 a letter was addressed 
to him by Colonel Mcola, an officer who had the re- 
spect of the army, stating the inefficiency of the ex- 
isting civil government, and suggesting a mixed form 
of government with a king at its head. This of course 
meant, though it did not say, with Washington as 
king. Had he been a Caesar or a Napoleon he would 
have at least considered the proposition and would 
have accepted it if feasible. 

The historian Sparks says: There was unques- 
tionably at this time and for some time afterwards, 
a party in the army, neither small in number nor 
insignificant in character, prepared to second and 
sustain a measure of this kind, which they conceived 
necessary to strengthen the civil power, draw out 
the resources of the country, and establish a durable 
government. But Washington would not entertain 
the proposition for a moment. He spoke of it as 
painful and disagreeable to his mind. He knew the 
existing evils. He had faith in the republic. "Per- 
haps he knew that he could not be king if he would. 
He certainly showed that he would not if he could." 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 293 

But in these closing years of the war the army 
was uneasy and clamorous for relief. The soldiers 
had been poorly clothed, poorly fed, and poorly paid. 
A serious revolt was threatened. Washington's pru- 
dence and wisdom were equal to the emergency. He 
called the officers together and addressed to them a 
firm but tender remonstrance, opening his address 
with a touch of pathos which gained all hearts. Paus- 
ing, after he had commenced his remarks, to take 
his spectacles from his pocket, he remarked that "he 
had grown gray in their service and now he was 
growing blind. It was the honest heart of Washing- 
ton, and the disaffected responded to the wisdom and 
feejing of his address." 

At last peace came. The army was to be dis- 
banded. I need not dwell on the scenes of farewell 
with his soldiers and his officers. They all reveal 
the great heart of the noblest patriot. On the twen- 
ty-third of December, 1783, Washington restored to 
Congress his commission as commander-in-chief with 
a few remarks of great felicity in which he com- 
mended the interests of our dearest country to the 
protection of Almighty God; and those who have 
the superintendence of them to his holy keeping. In 
that act he reached a higher moral elevation than 
any conqueror in the world's history had ever before 
attained. He went back to his home at Mount Ver- 
non. He reached his home the day before Christmas. 
A few days after, in a letter to Governor Clinton of 
New York, he records his feelings: "The scene is 
at last closed. I feel myself eased of a load of public 
■care. I hope to spend the remainder of my days in 
cultivating the affections of good men and in the 
practice of the domestic virtues." 



294 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

But he was not permitted to enjoy his well-earned 
rest very long. His country had further need of his 
services. The freedom which had been secured by 
the long years of the war of the Revolution was in 
danger of proving of little value because of the want 
of a stable government. For several years the colo- 
nies did as well as they could under the Articles 
of Confederation, but the result was not satisfactory. 
The states were not bound to do what Congress asked. 
Congress was in fact little more than an advisory 
body. It could, indeed, declare war, but it could not 
raise money to pay for it. If any state chose to stand 
out in opposition to Congress, it could practically 
nullify congressional action in that state. There 
could be no strong united government under such a 
system. A constitutional convention was called. 
Washington was made president of the convention. 
There was a great division of sentiment in the con- 
vention. Some wanted a strong national government. 
Some were afraid the national government would be 
too strong and would crush out the freedom of the 
separate states. Slavery also was a cause of discord. 
ISio agreement was possible without compromise. But 
a constitution was at last agreed upon. The next 
thing was to secure its ratification by the states. In 
this the influence of Washington was a powerful fac- 
tor. Several of the most ardent patriots and most 
eloquent orators of Virginia were opposed to the 
ratification of the new constitution, among these, 
Patrick Henry. But the influence of Washington 
prevailed, and Virginia ratified the constitution. The 
other twelve states also ratified it, some without 
much hesitation, and others reluctantly after much 
delav. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 295 

The new constitution provided for a republican 
government with a president and vice-president to 
serve four years. At the first election no one was 
thought of for president except Washington. He 
was unanimously elected, and in 1789 entered upon 
the duties of the office. It was a new experiment 
and it needed a wise pilot at the helm to guide the 
ship of state. Washington devoted his life to the 
work, still giving up his much loved domestic peace 
at Mount Vernon, to serve the nation. He was re- 
elected at the end of four years and served a second 
term, with a dignity, moderation, and patriotic de- 
votion that could not be surpassed; and then, though 
no one doubts that he could easily have been elected 
for a third term, he declined to be again a candidate, 
an example which it will be safe for all of his suc- 
cessors to follow. 

During a portion of the first year of Washing- 
ton's administration as president, he was very ill 
and his death seemed probable. To his physician 
who expressed to him doubts of his recovery, he re- 
plied: "Whether to-night or twenty years hence 
makes no difference. I know that I am in the hands 
of a good Providence." His mother died while he 
was returning to health. 

During his term of office he made two extensive 
tours, not as easy then as now, one into New Hamp- 
shire, and the other two years later into Georgia. 
Judging by the number of houses which are enumer- 
ated in New England as places where he was enter- 
tained, he could not have traveled very far in a day. 

During Washington's administration parties 
arose, and the people became divided under the lead 
of Hamilton and of Jefferson. Hamilton represented 

—20 



29G GEORGE WASHINGTON 

conservatism and a strong government, for which 
the Federalist party contended; Jefferson represented 
a wider freedom and greater state rights, for which 
the Republican, afterward called the Democratic, 
party contended. Washington's sympathies were 
with the former. 

The terrible scenes of the French Revolution oc- 
curred during Washington's second presidential 
term. A popular uprising occasioned by general 
suffering in the midst of royal luxury and extrava- 
gance, degenerated from an effort to obtain liberty 
into a wild thirst for blood and vengeance. Kings, 
nobles, aristocrats, republicans, leaders of revolu- 
tion were one after another made the victims of the 
guillotine. The story is too long, too interesting, 
too terrible to be more than alluded to here. La- 
fayette had been prominent in the early struggle for 
liberty in France. He was a dear friend of Wash- 
ington's. It would have been pleasant for Wash- 
ington to do what would gratify his friend, and throw 
the weight of American influence on the side of the 
French Revolutionists and against the gathering 
forces of monarchical Europe assembled to crush the 
new-born freedom in France. Lafayette sent to 
Washington, as "a souvenir of rising liberty," the 
key of the Bastille, that dread prison of Paris de- 
stroyed by the Revolutionists. Washington could 
not but sympathize with Lafayette. But he never 
allowed himself to deviate from the policy of keeping 
clear of entangling alliances with European nations. 
When, in his second term of office, Minister Genet 
came from France and "prosecuted his insulting at- 
tempts to enlist the sympathies of America in the 
war of France with England," a considerable portion 



GEORGE V/ASHINGTON 297 

of the American people, carried away by memories 
of French help in the Bevolutionary war, and by 
their zeal for universal freedom, and perhaps some- 
what by the old hostility to England, favored his 
schemes, and would have plunged the country into 
war. But Washington stood firm in opposition to 
the French Minister's schemes, and the wisdom of 
his action was ultimately made manifest to the Amer- 
ican people. 

Though Washington was remarkably dignified in 
his bearing and in most emergencies of his life even 
was calm, he was yet capable of intense emotion 
and of expressing it. When General Arthur St. 
Clair with his army was surprised and defeated by 
the Miami Indians, Washington, who, in parting with 
St. Clair, had especially exhorted him to "beware 
of a surprise," was intensely indignant that his warn- 
ing seemed to have been neglected and the horrors 
of an Indian massacre had thus become possible. 
"Oh God! Oh God!" he exclaimed, "he's worse than 
a murderer! How can he answer it to his country! 
The blood of the slain is upon him — the curse of 
widows and orphans — the curse of heaven." 

But, though terribly indignant, he did not suffer 
indignation to destroy his judgment. "I will hear 
him without prejudice; he shall have justice." I be- 
lieve St. Clair was ultimately exonerated by Con- 
gress after an investigation. 

Washington closed his public career by issuing 
a public Farewell Address to the people of the United 
States. It is a carefully prepared document, con- 
cerning which he had thought much and in reference 
to which he had consulted Jay, Hamilton, and Mad- 
ison during its composition. The document is 



298 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

a strong plea for the preservation of the Union, 
for the authority of the Constitution with a 
warning of the dangers of party spirit carried too 
far ; for the diffusion of knowledge, a respect for pub- 
lic credit and the avoidance of needless debt, and for 
strict impartiality in our intercourse with other na- 
tions. "Let us have," says he, "as little political 
connection with them as possible." 

The Farewell Address closes with the anticipa- 
tion of "that retreat (Mount Vernon) in which I 
promise myself to realize without alloy, the sweet 
enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow- 
citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a 
free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, 
and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, 
labors, and dangers." 

He retired to Mount Vernon, even here to be dis- 
turbed by rumors of wars with France, and by the 
possibility of being called to command the army in 
case of war, but the war did not come. Two years 
and a half passed by and then Washington, having 
caught cold, was ill for a day or two, became worse 
in the night, all help proved unavailing, and with 
the declaration, "I am not afraid to go," this friend 
of liberty, this "more than friend of his country," 
the immortal George Washington, passed into the 
great world beyond, December the fourteenth, 1799. 
And the nation wept, for the people were bereaved 
— wept as they have only once wept since, wept as 
they can hardly be expected ever to weep again. 

Washington Irving closes his life of Washington 
with this discriminating estimate of his character. 
"The character of Washington may want some of 
those poetical elements which dazzle and delight the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 299 

multitude, but it possessed fewer inequalities, and a 
rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the 
lot of one man. Prudence, firmness, sagacity, mod- 
eration, an over-ruling judgment, an immovable jus- 
tice, courage that never faltered, patience that never 
wearied, truth that disdained all artifice, magna- 
nimity without alloy. It seems as if Providence had 
endowed him in a pre-eminent degree with the quali- 
ties requisite to fit him for the high destiny he was 
called upon to fulfill — to conduct a momentous revo- 
lution which was to form an era in the history of 
the world, and to inaugurate a new and untried 
government, which, to use his own words, was to lay 
the foundation for the enjoyment of much purer 
civil liberty, and greater public happiness, than have 
hitherto been the portion of mankind. 

"The fame of Washington stands apart from every 
other in history; shining with a truer lustre and a 
more benignant glory. With us his memory remains 
a national property, where all sympathies throughout 
our widely extended and diversified empire meet in 
unison. Under all dissensions and amid all the 
storms of party, his precepts and example speak to 
us from the grave with a paternal appeal; and his 
name, by all revered, forms a universal tie of broth- 
erhood — a watchword of our Union." 

I shall not attempt to draw many lessons from 
the career of Washington. His life speaks for itself. 
He stands without a peer in this or any other coun- 
try as an example of unselfish patriotism. He sought 
no office. The office always sought him. Even Lin- 
coln sought the presidency with a politician's honor- 
able ambition, though he filled the office with a de- 
votion to the public good that could not be surpassed. 



300 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

We are apt to think that the great men of the past 
were greater than the great men of the present and 
perhaps they were, though in this as in many other 
things it is often distance which lends enchantment 
to the view. But no such distance is needed to hide 
defects or to magnify virtues in Washington. His 
life was spent in the service of his country, with no 
thought of either honor or profit as his reward. 
Happy will it be for America if her statesmen shall 
emulate the example of Washington; if her people 
shall remember and practice the great lessons of 
patriotism which he has left them as a legacy in his, 
wonderful Farewell Address. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN* 

I propose to speak to you this evening mainly re- 
specting the life and services of a self-made man, 
Benjamin Franklin. I shall do this, not merely for 
the purpose of making you acquainted with the sub- 
ject — it niay be that you are already thoroughly fa- 
miliar with it — but for the purpose of enforcing some 
truths which I think it is well for young men to un- 
derstand and appreciate. I select Franklin for my 
purpose, because he, better than any one else whom 
I know, represents in practice the lessons which I 
desire to inculcate in theory ; and I select him, prom- 
inent as he is in the early history of our country 
both as a man of science and a statesman, and there- 
fore as likely as almost any early American to be 
familiar to you, because I have learned by recent 
experience that our youth find so much to occupy 
their attention in the affairs of the present that they 
do not learn as much about the prominent men of 
the past as the youths of a former age did, who lived 
a more quiet and less excited life than we live now; 
and because also the further we get from a public 
man, with few exceptions, the less we know of him 
or care for him. Thus, when I was a boy, there was 
no name more familiar or dear to the boys and girls 
than Peter Parley, a name assumed by Samuel G. 

*Delivered in Minneapolis, March 12th, 1896. 



302 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Goodrich, a townsman of mine. Under this name 
Mr. Goodrich prepared and published more than 
one hundred volumes of juvenile literature, including 
geographies, histories, travels, and stories, and later, 
down even to 1854, he published Merry's Museum 
for the young people. His works were to the chil- 
dren in those days, what the St. Nicholas, the Youths' 
Companion, Harpers' Young People, and a multitude 
of other works are to the young people to-day. But 
as he was almost the only worker in that field of 
juvenile literature, the eyes of the young were every- 
where fastened upon him, and Peter Parley was as 
familiar a name as Robinson Crusoe has been since 
Daniel DeFoe first penned that captivating story for 
boys. And, as the years have gone on, it never oc- 
curred to me that Peter Parley was being forgotten 
and that the rising generation knew nothing about 
him and, if it were possible, cared less. Having oc- 
casion to refer to him, however, in visiting a high 
school, it suddenly dawned upon me that perhaps 
the present generation of children did not know as 
much about him as the older people, and so I asked 
the question, "How many of you have ever heard 
of Peter Parley?" Alas for the perpetuity of fame, 
not a single scholar had ever heard of his name, and 
I subsequently repeated the experiment at another 
school with the same result, and I doubt not I might 
ask the question of the school children of to-day all 
over the country with about the same result. Less 
than thirty years have sufficed to render almost 
unknown, totally unknown to the rising gen- 
eration, a gentleman who represented his coun- 
try abroad as consul at Paris, who was a 
voluminous author, producing besides his ju- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 303 

venile works two large volumes of interesting per- 
sonal reminiscences, and other works of seemingly 
permanent value, and who for thirty years was pre- 
eminently the children's friend. Truly the waves do 
wash out the footprints on the sand; and very few 
are the men who "departing leave behind them" for 
any prolonged period "footprints on the sands of 
time." Franklin, it is true, is one of these. But it 
so long since he lived, and so much has happened 
since then, and so many mighty men have lived, war- 
riors, statesmen, poets, orators, that I fear many of 
the young men of our day have never seen his foot- 
prints at all ; and so to-night, although I do not sup- 
pose that any one of you is "a forlorn and ship- 
wrecked brother," I wish you to go with me to see 
the footprints left by Benjamin Franklin, seeing 
which you "shall take heart again." 

I said at the outset that I was going to speak 
of a self-made man, as the phrase is. I am going 
to do this because I admire what he did, what he 
was, in spite of his lack of opportunities for prolonged 
training in schools. Not, I beg you to understand, 
that I think a self-made man is better than any 
other — generally speaking I do not admire him so 
much as I do others, because he is very apt to look 
upon himself as his own creator and then to rever- 
ence and worship his creator. I believe thoroughly 
in regular training in school and college when you 
can get it. When you can not get it, then I believe 
in making the most of yourself that you can by your 
unaided effort. But I do not believe that the best 
training for vigorous Christian character is to be 
found in the freedom and license of the street and the 
saloon and in the absence of parental control and 



304 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

guidance. The best training for Christian character 
the surest training, the one you can rely on in the 
great majority of cases, is the Christian home, the 
Sunday School, the Church. Now and then some 
one comes into the work of Christ who has not had 
the influence of these institutions about him. But he 
is no better Christian because he never had early 
and regular Christian training, while the great multi- 
tude who never had this early and regular Christian 
training never become Christians at all. So it is 
with mental culture. Those who never get it in the 
schools and in the colleges, seldom get it at all. Now 
and then one appears as an exception and we gladly 
hail him as an example for others who are in like 
circumstances; but what we commend in him is not 
that he did not pursue his studies regularly in the 
schools, but that, not being able to do that, he has 
still made himself capable of great service to th& 
world. What man has done, man can do. What 
man without the opportunities of scholastic training 
has done, other men in like situation may do. And be- 
cause I do not suppose that the young men before 
me will ever have much more opportunity to go to 
school, nor that hereafter I shall meet them as stu- 
dents, I put before them to-night the example of a man 
unsurpassed in practical wisdom and excelled by few 
in the services rendered by him to his country, yet 
a man who at your age was probably in a less com- 
fortable condition than yours, and had a less hopeful 
outlook than yours. 

Benjamin Franklin was the son of a poor man 
who had seventeen children, of whom Benjamin wa& 
the fifteenth in age. To be born into such a family 
seems like foreordained poverty. Brothers and sis- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 305 

ters are very good things to have, but it would seem 
as if it were possible to have too many of them for 
comfort, and that the limit of comfort would be 
reached sometime before there were seventeen chil- 
dren in the family. His father, Josiah Franklin, 
emigrated from Northamptonshire, England, to New 
England about 1685 with his wife and such chil- 
dren as they then had. This wife died and Josiah 
married for his second wife, the daughter of the 
old Nantucket poet, Peter Folger. This lady was 
"a discreet and virtuous woman" and she lived to 
a good old age. A letter written by her when she 
was eighty-four years old to her son Benjamin, then 
a fast rising man of forty-five in Philadelphia, has 
been published and shows her to have been in her old 
age as prudent and provident as need be. Accord- 
ing to the inscription on the tombstone, which we 
know can always be relied on, the father was "a 
pious and prudent man," so that Benjamin, who 
was born January 17, 1706, had one advantage in 
starting in the world, namely, honest blood. His: 
father was a tallow chandler and soap boiler. His 
business was not very pleasant; but he managed to 
keep his family alive with it, till all the boys had 
been bound out as apprentices to trades except the 
youngest, Benjamin; and then, as often happens in 
families, the desire arose to make something better 
out of this, the youngest son, than it had been pos- 
sible to make of the others. And so Benjamin was 
sent to the public school to become a clergyman. He 
had the promise from his uncle of the shorthand 
notes of all the sermons he had ever listened to, 
which Benjamin was to decipher and from which 
he was to get material for his own future discourses.. 



300 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

But Providence had other work for him than preach- 
ing. The boy began his school life at the age of eight 
and ended it at ten. It was too much for the fa- 
ther to keep him at school, and so Benjamin was 
taken into the tallow chandlery to dip candles and 
wait on customers. Picture to yourself the little 
fellow, ten years old, engaged in this occupation as 
his beginning in life, and tell me whether it is likely 
that he will ever attain to honor in the world. Is 
there a newsboy or a bootblack in our city whose 
prospect is not as good as was that little fellow's, 
dipping candles? But Benjamin was not the boy 
to dip candles forever. He wanted, like hosts of 
other boys, to go to sea, not so much because he had 
the tastes of a sailor, but as the means of getting 
away from his unpleasant occupation. But finally 
something was discovered that suited him. He had 
a great liking for books, read whatever he could get 
hold of, and so his father bound him as an apprentice 
to a brother who was a printer. Now, many people 
suppose because some boys who have become printers, 
have also become famous as writers, and because 
printers more than anybody else may properly be 
called "men of letters," that there is some special 
connection between the work of a printer and literary 
culture. But printing, setting type, may be made as 
mechanical and unintellectual and uninspiring an 
occupation as anything else; and a man may set 
type without getting any more real knowledge from 
the copy which he sets up than if he were putting 
together letters in an unmeaning form. I have known 
men to set type in this purely mechanical way with 
no real comprehension of or thought about what 
they were composing. It is not, you see, the oc- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 307 

cupation merely which makes the difference in men's 
careers. It is the men themselves. Benjamin Frank- 
lin was one of those who knew what he was compos- 
ing when he was setting type. Horace Greeley was 
another. But there are multitudes of the other kind 
who get no more real culture from being printers 
than they would from being brick-layers. But 
Franklin, the printer, was no such workman. He 
thought, and therefore he was interested in thought. 
Obliged to work for his daily bread, he yet got out 
of his life a good deal more than his bread; for in 
all his work he comprehended the thoughts which 
other men had written for him to print and he not 
only gained the knowledge which was thus placed 
within his reach, but, by thinking upon what he read, 
he was inspired to think for himself and at last to 
write. An apprentice boy, he comes across the Spec- 
tator, the immortal work of Joseph Addison and 
kindred literary spirits, and he reads this work with 
avidity. But he is not content to understand and 
admire. He sees in this work a perfection of form, 
an elegance of style, that he has nowhere else found; 
and he determines to be able to write somewhat as 
this elegant author writes. And so he takes notes of 
the ideas, and then after he had forgotten the form 
of the original he did his best to reproduce it, thus 
laboriously trying to write like Addison. He prob- 
ably could not then have found a better master of 
literature to copy, and doubtless the clear, simple, 
luminous style of Franklin owes its origin, in part 
at least, to the faithful study and earnest imitation, 
by the printer's apprentice, of the style of Addison. 
And yet it is said that the paper on which he was em- 
ployed at this time was spicy, which is about the same 



308 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

thing as to say now of a paper that it is slangy. Ben- 
jamin Franklin might have been content to write 
slang for a paper that published slang, but he chose 
rather to study and imitate that prince of English es- 
sayists; and so, instead of being nobody but a demor- 
alizing reporter and writer for a low-toned newspaper, 
he gained a style of writing, a felicity and nobility of 
speech, which fitted him to be the most eminent 
diplomatist of his country abroad, and the most natu- 
ral and effective exponent of practical wisdom for 
the j:>eople at home. It is an old and wise saying, 
gentlemen, "in time of peace, prepare for war." Is it 
any less fitting to say: "in youth, prepare for man- 
hood"; "in manhood, prepare for old age?" Lay 
foundation for what you expect to build. If your life 
structure is to be as flimsy as an Arab's tent, you 
need no great foundation, and you will find out how 
utterly worthless is your tent. If you mean to build 
anything substantial in either mind or character 
you must lay proper foundations. And so Benjamin 
Franklin, when he was nothing but a printer's devil, 
laid the foundation of a style of writing which would 
have made him immortal, even if he had done nothing 
but write. 

The newspaper on which Franklin was employed 
was published by his brother to whom Benjamin had 
been bound as an apprentice. It took some liberties 
with the powers that were, and in consequence the 
publisher found himself in trouble and no longer per- 
mitted to publish a paper. Accordingly he released 
Benjamin from his indentures as an apprentice and 
proposed to publish the paper in his name. The 
scheme did not work well, however. The brother 
was too imperious to suit the independent spirit of 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 309 

the younger man, and, therefore, Benjamin took the 
first opportunity of withdrawing from the paper 
and of leaving Boston. He went to New York, but 
found no employment. He went on further to Phila- 
delphia, "making his first entrance into the place in 
which he was afterwards to play so important a part, 
from a boat which he had assisted in rowing down 
the Delaware, one memorable Sunday morning, in 
October, 1723, at the age of seventeen. He was clad 
in his working dress, soiled by exposures on the 
way; fatigued, hungry, and almost penniless." It 
is a familiar picture which was that day presented 
of young Benjamin Franklin walking along Market 
Street, with the "three great puffy rolls of bread in 
his arm, passing the door of his future wife, noticed 
not very favorably by that lady, making the cir- 
cuit of the town, sharing those never-to-be-forgotten 
loaves with a hungry mother and her child, till at 
last he finds shelter in sleep, in a silent meeting of 
the Quakers." There is nothing in the outward con- 
dition of this young man yet to indicate future great- 
ness. Not one of you here who is not better off in 
worldly condition than was young Benjamin Frank- 
lin, sleeping off his weariness that Sunday morning 
in Philadelphia, in a Quaker Meeting House, without 
an acquaintance in the city and without anything to 
tlo and almost nothing on which to live. But he at 
once sought employment and after a fashion found 
it. He was thrown into the company of all sorts of 
people, from the most pronounced vagabonds to the 
royal governors of provinces. One of the latter, an 
enthusiast without wisdom, a man whose vision was 
telescopic and not microscopic, and who therefore 
saw things clearly at a distance, but could see noth- 



310 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

Ing when things were near enough to be handled and 
actually dealt with, proposed to Franklin to start a 
paper of his own, promising necessary financial help; 
the result of which was that Franklin, led by the 
promises of this scatter-brained statesman, found 
himself in London, on a fool's errand, and was driven 
to his trade there in order to support himself. Here he 
had a shabby companion as a crony, and I am sorry 
to say that the two lived together in a manner by no 
means creditable to them, these days in London being 
the black days of Franklin's life. On his return to 
Pennsylvania in 1726, he turned over a new leaf. He 
was now only 20 years old; but he had seen a great 
deal of the world; had encountered all sorts of queer 
people; had acquired a clear and vigorous style of 
writing, and had learned by experience the difference 
between the path trodden by the wise man and that 
trodden by the fool, and had fully made up his mind 
that the former was to be preferred. 

I can hardly notice the various steps of his sub- 
sequent progress; to dwell upon them is impossible. 
On his return to Philadelphia from his foolish ex- 
pedition to London, he first engaged in mercantile 
business with a friend, but the friend dying soon 
after, Franklin returned to his composing stick and 
case as a printer. He soon established a reputation 
for wisdom which made him influential with his asso- 
ciates. One of his first steps was to organize the 
Junto, an association of young men for self-culture 
and mutual help; out of this Junto ultimately came 
the great Philadelphia Library, "the mother of all 
the North American subscription libraries." This 
Junto lasted forty years and became the basis of the 
American Philosophical Society, that is, an organiza- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 311 

tion by a few intelligent clerks and mechanics for 
self-improvement and inquiry becomes in time the 
leading society of the country in investigating sci- 
entific truth. Meanwhile Franklin becomes an em- 
ployer, takes a partner both in business and matri- 
mony, starts a newspaper, and three years later in 
1732, he being then only twenty-six years old, begins 
the publication of his famous Poor Richard's Al- 
manac, a work which appeared annually for twenty- 
five years, and contained a large amount of practical 
worldly wisdom condensed and epigrammatic and 
inferior in value and quantity only to the Proverbs 
of Solomon, which wisdom was afterward collected 
and published in a famous tract called the Way to 
Wealth. It was worldly in its tone as the science of 
wealth always is. But it was not ungenerous or 
mean. It was careful, economical, wise. I can not 
possibly pack so much wisdom in this lecture in any 
other way as by quoting some of these maxims of 
Poor Eichard. I want you to think of them, not 
merely hear them. 

God helps them that help themselves. 

Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, 
while the used key is always bright. 

What we call time enough always proves little 
enough. 

He that rlseth late may trot all day, and shall 
scarce overtake his business at night. 

Drive thy business, let not that drive thee. 

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man 
healthy, wealthy and wise. 

There are no gains without pains ; then help hands 
for I have no lands. 

He that hath a trade, hath an estate. 



312 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

At the workingman's house, hunger looks in but 
dares not enter. 

Plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall 
have corn to sell and to keep. 

One to-day is worth two to-morrows. 

Handle your tools without mittens; the cat in 
gloves catches no mice. 

Little strokes fell great oaks. 

Three removes are as bad as a fire. 

Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee. 

If you would have your business done, go ; if not, 
send. 

He that by the plough would thrive, 
Himself must either hold or drive. 

The eye of the master will do more work than 
both his hands. 

If you would have a faithful servant and one that 
you like, serve yourself. 

Many a little makes a mickle. 

Beware of little expenses. 

A small leak will sink a great ship. 

Fools make feasts and wise men eat them. 

Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou 
shalt sell thy necessaries. 

Always taking out of the meal tub and never put- 
ting in soon comes to the bottom. 

If you would know the value of money, go and 
try to borrow some, for he that goes a borrowing goes 
a sorrowing. 

Vessels large may venture more, 

But little boats should keep near shore. 

Lying rides upon debt's back. The second vice is 
lying; the first is running in debt. 

It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. 



/ 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 313 

A little neglect may breed great mischief; for 
want of a nail a shoe was lost, and for want of a shoe 
the horse Avas lost, and for want of a horse the rider 
was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy; 
all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail. 

Those have a short Lent who owe money at Easter. 
For age and want save while you may, 
No morning sun lasts a whole day. 

It is easier to build two chimneys than to keep 
one in fuel. 

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will 
learn in no other. 

But he did too much for us to dwell upon his wise 
sayings. In 1736 he was chosen clerk of the General 
Assembly, the following year deputy postmaster in 
Philadelphia. He has a hand in everything useful 
in Philadelphia. He sets on foot measures for erect- 
ing a building for Whitefield to preach in, he starts 
fire companies, he edits and publishes books, he in- 
vents his famous Franklin stove, draws up a pro- 
posal for establishing an academy which ultimately 
became the University of Pennsylvania, projected 
and established the American Philosophical Society, 
assisted in founding the Pennsylvania Hospital. You 
see he is inventive, has his eyes open, sees things to 
be done, and is ready to help do them. He is not 
standing around in a helpless way for somebody to 
suggest something for him to do or help him to do 
something. This boy, who left school at the age of 
ten and went to dipping tallow candles, is already, 
not yet thirty years old, the wisest and most in- 
fluential and, what is more, the most useful man in 
Philadelphia. How has this come about? Not cer- 
tainly by Franklin's waiting like Mr. Micawber for 



314 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

"something to turn up," but by his making the most 
of his opportunities, by his getting ready to do some- 
thing before the call to do something came, and when 
he did not know whether such a call would ever 
come. As Hamlet says: "The readiness is all." It 
is as applicable to this life as it is to the next. Be 
ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, 
not only will the Son of man come, but the oppor- 
tunity to render great service will come. Once in 
five centuries, perhaps, there is occasion for a Lin- 
coln and a Grant. But, though men wait five cen^ 
turies for the occasion to come and generation after 
generation passes away without the sight, yet the 
Lincoln and the Grant must be ready when the oc- 
casion does come, and they are ready. And so Frank- 
lin, not knowing what the unrolled scroll of time was 
to reveal, prepared himself and was ready. When 
the colonies find themselves in trouble with the 
mother country, Franklin is the first to suggest the 
idea of Union as a means of safety. Other men 
might speak more eloquently, but no man brought to 
the councils greater wisdom. 

You all know something about his philosophical 
studies. At least you have all heard of his experi- 
ment with the kite during the thunder storm, and his 
discovery of the identity of electricity and lightning. 
He made his discoveries with the simplest kind of 
apparatus, that practical wisdom which helped him 
in other things aiding him even in scientific research. 
As the great English man of science, Sir Humphry 
Davy, said of him, "A singular felicity of induction 
guided all his researches, and by very small means 
he established very grand truths. The style and 
manner of his publication on electricity are almost 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 315 

as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains." 
In 1756 he was made a Fellow of the Koyal So- 
ciety of London, and that, too, contrary to all prece- 
dent, while he was in America. 

We have seen Franklin as the printer, as the 
scientist; henceforth we must look at him as the 
statesman. As a statesman Franklin rendered the 
very highest services first to the mother country and 
then to America. In 1757 he went to London as the 
agent of the province of Pennsylvania to settle dis- 
putes that had arisen between the province and the 
heirs of its founder, the celebrated William Penn. 
Difficult as was his task, he completed it successfully 
in three years. While in England, he published a 
work entitled The Interests of Great Britain Consid- 
ered, which attracted great attention, and it has been 
said on good authority "that the expedition against 
Canada and its consequences in the victory of Wolfe 
at Quebec, and the conquest of that country may be 
chiefly ascribed to Franklin." The great University 
of Oxford, England, now honored him with the de- 
gree of Doctor of Laws. And now as British op- 
pression began to chafe the minds of Americans, 
Franklin is made the agent in England, not only of 
Pennsylvania, but of New Jersey, Massachusetts, 
and Georgia, all these colonies seeing that "no more 
astute counsellor could be sent to cope with the 
diplomacy of the Old World." He appeared before 
Parliament itself and, without special preparation, 
he "answers fully and shrewdly all questions pro- 
posed." "There is enough wisdom in his responses 
to save an empire if the British representatives had 
ears to hear." Six years later he skillfully unveiled 
the duplicity of the royal governor and lieutenant- 



316 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

governor of Massachusetts, showing that, while pre- 
tending to favor the people of the colonies, they were 
actually writing to England in favor of employing 
armed force to subdue the Americans. The effect 
upon Massachusetts and the other colonies was tre- 
mendous. For his part in this matter Franklin was 
grossly abused before the Privy Council by Wedde- 
burn, the king's solicitor, while the privy counsellors 
could not suppress their glee and exultation. Frank- 
lin stood during the whole scene "like a rock." "He 
was dressed in a suit of Manchester velvet." It 
is said he purposely wore the same dress, when, with 
his fellow commissioners at Paris, he signed the 
Treaty of 1783, by which England acknowledged the 
independence of the United States, and an end was 
put to the meddling of privy counsellors with the 
affairs of America. 

For ten years Franklin remained in England, 
seeking to promote the interests of the colonies. He 
kept his finger, however, on the pulse of the British 
nation, and when at last he discovered that delirium 
was certain, he, having no desire to be a prisoner in 
the Tower, in good time departed for America. 
While he was on the Atlantic the battle of Lexing- 
ton was fought, and the possibility of a peaceful 
settlement of the difficulties between the mother 
country and the colonies was at an end. Franklin, 
on arriving home, was immediately elected a mem- 
ber of the Second Continental Congress. He drafted 
Articles of Confederation, by which all the colonies 
might have some sort of unity of government, he was 
appointed postmaster general, he visited the camp 
of Washington at Cambridge to counsel and encour- 
age, he went to Canada to negotiate insurrection, and 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 317 

on that memorable 4th of July, 1776, at the age of 
seventy, he put his name to the Declaration of In- 
dependence. "We must be unanimous," said John 
Hancock, of Massachusetts, the president of the Con- 
gress; "there must be no pulling different ways: we 
must all hang together." "Yes," answered the wise 
and witty Franklin, "we must indeed all hang to- 
gether, or most assuredly we shall all hang separate- 
ly." Surely now, having filled out the three score 
years and ten of life allotted to man, the aged phi- 
losopher and statesman may be permitted to spend in 
leisure whatever remnant of days may be left to him 
by Providence. But, no, we find him next presiding 
over a convention to frame a state constitution for 
Pennsylvania; next we find him traveling to Staten 
Island to have an interview with Lord Howe, the Brit- 
ish commander, and sleeping in the same bed with 
John Adams and arguing that statesman to sleep 
with "a curtain dissertation on opening the window 
for ventilation." A month later he is on his way to 
Paris, accompanied by his two grandsons, on the most 
important business of his life, a commissioner to 
negotiate a treaty and alliance with the French mon- 
arch. Upon the success of his efforts in this capacity 
depends, so far as human foresight can determine, 
the independence of his country. For a full view of 
the diplomatic skill and wisdom displayed by Frank- 
lin in these negotiations, by which he secured an 
alliance with France and brought the French army 
and navy to the support of the struggling colonists 
in their efforts for independence, I must refer you 
to that prince of American historians, George Ban- 
croft, in whose great work you will find the highest 
eulogiums pronounced upon the services of Frank- 



318 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

lin; and for a view of Franklin's associates in France 
and of his social position there, I must refer you to 
the March number of the Century Magazine the pres- 
ent year. Enough for our purpose now that he was 
successful. France became our ally. Independence 
was secured. Turgot, the eminent French statesman, 
wrote of him, in Latin, "Eripuit coelo fulmen, scep- 
trumque tyrannis." "He snatched the lightning from 
heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants." He was in- 
troduced to the king and court at Versailles, and thus 
realized the proverb of Solomon: "Seest thou a man 
diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; 
he shall not stand before mean men." He had an in- 
terview with Voltaire and was publicly embraced by 
him at the Academy of Science while the enthusiastic 
Frenchmen present cried out, "How charming it is to 
see Solon and Sophocles embrace," giving to Frank- 
lin the higher place in wisdom. In a month from that 
scene Voltaire was dead. Franklin lived ten years 
longer, busy to the last. He signed the treaty of 
peace by which England acknowledged the independ- 
ence of his country. He then spent a few days in 
England where he might now go in safety and honor. 
Then he returned to America, was received with great 
demonstrations of respect and honor. He was three 
years president of Pennsylvania, and, when a conven- 
tion assembled to frame a constitution for the whole 
country, a convention that did frame the Constitu- 
tion under which we live, Franklin was there as a 
member, to give his wise counsel in the great work. 
It was he who, on the last day of the convention, 
Monday, September 17th, 1787, made the motion to 
sign the instrument. He supported the motion with 
a written speech, which, as he was too infirm to stand 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 319 

and deliver it, was read by one of his colleagues. 
Most men under such circumstances would have been 
in bed with the doctors around them. But Franklin 
kept up to the last. And only when his work was 
really finished, a work whose magnitude and gran- 
deur a moment's backward glance at what has been 
said to-night, will reveal, did he retire to his home 
in Market Street, Philadelphia, to await that final 
summons which none of us can escape. He suffered 
much, but his homely wisdom and love of anecdote 
kept him company to the last. He died about eleven 
o'clock at night, April 17, 1790 in the eighty-fifth 
year of his age. "He had become the property of the 
nation and the world"; and both the nation and the 
world have been proud to assert their right to a share 
in his fame. He was not especially a religious man, 
but the virtues he exhibited are virtues without which 
anything that passes for religion is of very little val- 
ue. He accomplished what he did by the most inde- 
fatigable industry, by a constant looking ahead and 
preparation for what was coming, by temperance, 
by honesty, by study, by self-denial, by having his 
eyes open so as to take in all that experience might 
bring to him, by interest in his fellowmen, by charity, 
by love unfeigned, by doing to others as he would 
that they should do to him. But so far as his worldly 
success is concerned, the key to it all is that he im- 
proved his time and made the most of his opportuni- 
ties. Is not the lesson a plain one? Does it need to 
be enforced? 

As the grave closes over the remains of such a 
man as Franklin, you may ask "what will he be in 
the life to come?" a question which we can not an- 
swer. You mav ask and vou do ask "what has he 



320 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

done?" a question which the study of his life clearly 
answers. But you do not ask, you would never think 
of asking, "how much money did he leave?" So 
much the better is it to be and to do than merely to 
get and to have. So much more surely do our acts 
influence and affect the world than do the possessions 
which we gather and leave. 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS* 

Till our fathers established a republic, the world's 
theory of governmeut had been almost entirely a mo- 
narchical theory. Kings ruled, and, having once been 
established as kings, their children and children's chil- 
dren ruled after them. Our country established in 
1788 the principle of an elective executive. And when 
one thinks of the number of people in this country, 
the variety of races, the multitude of varying opin- 
ions, the range of character, and the intricate com- 
plexities of politics with all the machines and com- 
bines within the political parties, it would seem 
improbable that the choice of the nation for president 
would very often be a wise one. But as a fact that 
choice has very seldom been unwise. Indeed I do 
not know, as events have happened, that it has ever 
been unwise. 

The presidential election of 1844 was a most im- 
portant one when Henry Clay was the candidate of 
the Whigs and James K. Polk, the candidate of the 
Democrats. Clay was the idol of the Whigs; Polk 
was comparatively unknown. I was a small boy 
and I remember very well that when the returns 
of the election in the state of New York came slowly 
in, and it became apparent that Clay had lost the 
state and thus had lost his election, I shed tears 

*Delivered at the University of Minnesota, February 12th, 1909. 



322 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

over the result which seemed likely to be so disas- 
trous to the country. But the result was the annexa- 
tion of Texas, the Mexican war, the acquisition of 
an immense area of territory, and the extension of 
our boundaries to the Pacific from Oregon to South- 
ern California. The process by which we secured 
this expansion was undoubtedly somewhat shady, but 
the result was unquestionably most favorable to our 
nation's growth and power. In the presidential cam- 
paign Mr. Polk was laughed at by the Whigs who 
sang, "Ha! ha! ha! Such a nominee, as James K. 
Polk of Tennessee," but Mr. Polk won. He proved 
to be a man of no mean intellectual power, and he 
carried out very vigorously the policy of his party, 
which at that time was very emphatically a policy 
of expansion. California, Arizona, New Mexico, and 
Texas were added to our territory. If Mr. Clay had 
been elected, Texas would not have been annexed 
at that time certainly, and perhaps not at any time. 
There would have been no Mexican war. There 
would have been no territory added over which the 
nation must contend in the interest of slavery or 
freedom. There would probably have been no Civil 
war and no emancipation of the slaves. We can 
say to our Southern brethren what Joseph said to 
his brethren in Egypt. "But as for you, ye thought 
evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to 
bring to pass as it is this day." 

From George Washington to Janies Buchanan 
we have a list of presidents far surpassing in charac- 
ter and ability any line of kings that I have any 
knowledge of. Most of them were statesmen and 
scholars, and the few who were not scholars made 
up for their deficiency by strong common sense, great 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 323 

vigor of administration, and unflinching honesty of 
purpose. 

During the first forty years of our existence as 
a nation the states of Virginia and Massachusetts 
furnished all the presidents. Virginia furnished 
four, all of whom served eight years. Massachusetts 
furnished two, both of whom served four years. 
These six presidents all belonged to the colonial aris- 
tocracy, being of the best families and trained under 
the best influences of British and American life. In 
1828 Andrew Jackson was elected — a westerner as 
he was called in those days, Tennessee, his home 
state, being then on our western border. Jackson 
was a man of little culture, but of great native 
strength. He was unlike any of his predecessors. 
Of all our presidents he was most like Roosevelt. 
They differed as much as possible in social stand- 
ing, culture, and taste, but they were alike in three 
vital points, that both of them knew positively what 
ought to be done and were determined that what 
ought to be done should be done; and both were the 
idol of the common people; and both had bitter ene- 
mies among the people who were not common. Af- 
ter Jackson came Van Buren, a representative of 
the Dutch aristocracy of New York. Then came 
General Harrison, a western man of the people, who 
died after one month's service, and John Tyler, the 
vice-president, a Virginian of the Virginian aristoc- 
racy, served three years and eleven months. In 
1844 James K. Polk of Tennessee was elected, a 
western man but with much more culture than Jack- 
son had. In 1848 bluff old Zachary Taylor, a rep- 
resentative of the army rather than of any section, 
a Southerner by birth, an American in feeling, was 



324 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

elected, but died before the completion of his term 
of office, and Vice-President Millard Fillmore, a New 
York gentleman, succeeded him. In 1852 Franklin 
Pierce, a Bowdoin College graduate and friend of 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, was elected. He had served 
in the Mexican war, to which fact he owed his nomi- 
nation. His home was in New Hampshire and he 
was the third and last president from New England. 
In 1856, when the clouds were gathering out of which 
ultimately came the downpour of the Civil War, 
James Buchanan, a conservative old gentleman of 
the aristocratic type, a Pennsylvanian, was elected 
and served his full four years, in the latter part of 
which the thunder of the coming storm was distinctly 
heard. 

The old dynasty ended with James Buchanan. 
A new dynasty was begun with Abraham Lincoln 
and is represented to-day by Theodore Roosevelt; 
and between the two are Andrew Johnson, Ulysses 
S. Grant, R. B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester 
A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and 
William McKinley; and I am sure none of us would 
think for a moment that the men of the later dy- 
nasty are inferior in intellect, scholarship, character, 
or statesmanship to those of the earlier period. Al- 
most every one of these later men is justly to be 
Tionored for conspicuous ability or for eminent serv- 
ice to the republic. 

Washington, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, 
Jackson, Benjamin Harrison, and McKinley, of none 
of whom shall I speak particularly to-day, were all 
men either of distinguished ability or of great achieve- 
ments, and all in different ways greatly honored the 
country which they served. 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 325 

I wish, however, to speak particularly to-day of 
three others, whom I shall characterize as three great 
presidents, whose character and life I hope may make 
an impression on yonr minds and whose example 
may be an inspiration to the highest service as citi- 
zens. The three taken together illustrate most hap- 
pily the possibilities of great achievement open to 
every American and emphasize most strongly the 
fact that success does not depend on birth, wealth, 
or anything else except personal ability, earnestness, 
and energy. 

I am glad that these three presidents did not 
all belong to the same political party, and, therefore, 
in speaking of them I can do justice to them without 
any partisan feeling, while at the same time all three 
of these presidents have passed beyond the line of 
parties into the larger and nobler field of patriot- 
ism, and all of them have become so identified with 
enthusiasm for the good of the country rather than 
for the triumph of party, that the admiration felt 
for them is almost as great among the party opposed 
to them as among their special political followers. 
As a patriot is a nobler character that a politician, 
these three men are fairly entitled to the distinction 
I would give them to-day in speaking of them as 
Three Great Presidents. The first of these is Grover 
Cleveland. 

Grover Cleveland was the son of a Presbyterian 
minister and he had many of the personal traits of 
the old Puritans. In all his public career he never 
hesitated to do what he thought was right. As mayor 
of Buffalo he saved the city a million dollars in the 
first six months of his official life, by vetoing ex- 
travagant and improper measures. As governor of 



326 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

New York he put his veto on many improper acts 
of the legislature, and as president he vetoed more 
acts of Congress than any other president and I 
have never learned that the country was the worse 
therefor. When the dispute with England over the 
Venezuela boundary arose, President Cleveland de- 
fined the Monroe Doctrine in such vigorous terms 
as to astonish both England and the United States. 
The result was the appointment of an Arbitration 
Commission and a subsequent peaceful settlement 
of the question. So, too, when the strike in Chicago 
had assumed almost the proportions of a revolution 
and there was danger of an immense destruction of 
property and of life, President Cleveland did not 
hesitate a moment as to his duty, but sent at once 
the Federal troops to the scene of trouble and the 
disturbance was quelled. 

Mr. Cleveland has but recently passed away, and 
the nation has most sincerely mourned his loss. I 
think that the faith of the people in his integrity 
was practically unlimited and his appointment as 
one of the committee to hold the stock of the Equi- 
table Insurance Company in New York at a crisis 
in our financial affairs restored the confidence of 
the policy holders that if anything were still left, 
it would now be safe. 

It was delightful to see a man of such indom- 
itable will and established beliefs, who had passed 
through a very stormy political career, who had the 
honor of being the only president of his party elected 
within the last half century and the further honor 
of being twice elected, though not for a continuous 
term, who was thoroughly democratic and yet as 
hostile to everything that smacks of fanaticism or 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 327 

that would interfere with vested rights, as any old 
Federalist ever was — it was delightful to see him 
officiating as trustee of Princeton College, and giving 
his time to the promotion of the college interests, 
and speaking to the students in addresses that would 
do honor to Isaiah or Jeremiah or any other of the 
old prophets, and yet all the time having one hand 
on the financial interests in New York City, and the 
other on his fishing tackle, waiting for the treasures 
of the sea. He has gone to his reward. But he will 
find a place in history as one of our great presidents, 
and he will be honored by the thoughtful people 
of this country as a statesman of great breadth of 
view, a partisan who loved country better than party, 
and as an executive true to his convictions and fear- 
less in the discharge of duty. 

The second great president of whom I shall speak 
is Theodore Roosevelt. He was born amid compara- 
tive affluence and had the best opportunities for 
securing the highest education and for fitting him- 
self for the largest public duties. It is to his endur- 
ing credit that he has made the most of his oppor- 
tunities, has not been content to live in comfort and do 
nothing and be nothing, but by faithful devotion to 
duty, has become the soldier, the scholar, the writer, 
and the statesman that he is. He graduated at Har- 
vard University in 1880, two years after William H. 
Taft had graduated at Yale. He entered politics as a 
champion of civil service reform. He introduced 
into the .New York legislature the first civil serv- 
ice bill passed by the legislature, in 1883. In 1889 
he was made by President Harrison a member of the 
United States Civil Service Commission, and held 
the position six years. At the beginning of his term 

—22 



328 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

/ of service 14,000 employes of the government held 
their position under civil service rules. At the end 
of his term of service, 40,000 employes so held their 
position. 

Eoosevelt was afterwards made president of the 
New York Board of Police Commissioners and dis- 
tinguished himself by bravely doing the unpopular 
thing, namely, enforcing the laws in reference to 
the sale of liquor. Of his career as assistant sec- 
retary of the navy under McKinley, his services as a 
soldier in Cuba under General Leonard Wood, his 
election to the office of governor of the state of New 
York, his nomination as vice-president on the ticket 
with McKinley in 1900 — a nomination not sought 
nor desired but forced upon him — his election, the 
sad death of McKinley and the entrance of Eoose- 
velt on his career as president, September 14th, 1901, 
I need not speak. He has been president now a little 
more than seven years, elected at the last election 
by an unprecedented majority. You know him and 
his career as president as well as I do. No matter 
to what party you belong, you believe in Eoosevelt 
and are proud of him and glad that he is to-day 
president. When the great coal strike threatened 
to produce a famine in coal, and the suffering coun- 
try appealed to the president as its last hope, he 
took hold of the matter, though he said, "This I 
suppose ends me." But it did not. His wise coun- 
sel and courageous action resulted in settling the 
trouble; and when it was settled I am sure that 
neither the coal barons nor the miners had less re- 
spect than before for President Eoosevelt, while in 
the hearts of the American people he had gained 
a much larger place than he held before. They knew 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 329 

his courage and his fairness and they loved him. 
When he announced his great principle of giving 
every man a square deal, he struck a chord to which 
every honest American heart responds and pointed 
the way for the just settlement of every question. 
Is it a corporation, is it a railroad, is it a shipper,, 
is it a private citizen, is it capital, is it labor — a', 
square deal for all is the President's motto and what- 
ever may be the details of his plans, everybody knows 
that a square deal for all will be the underlying prin- 
ciple. 

President Roosevelt is so earnest, so industrious, 
and so tireless, that the great measures which he 
advocates and the great interests which he serves, 
and the great questions of national and international 
welfare which he solves, pass before us with almost 
kaleidoscopic rapidity of change, and we feel, as 
perhaps never before, that the nation under his guid 
ance is at the present time leading a very strenuous 
life. But in and through it all, the people know 
him as their champion and friend, and they believe 
that though he, like all other men, may make mis- 
takes, he will never betray the interests of the people, 
and would never betray them though all the king- 
doms of the world, including Standard Oil, Steel 
Trust, Beef Combine, and all the other monopolies 
should be offered to him as his reward for so doing. 

A recent article in one of our journals informs 
us that the President once replied to some compli- 
ment for his successful career in this wise : 

"It has always seemed to me that in life there 
are two ways of achieving success, or for that mat- 
ter, of achieving what is commonly called greatness. 
One is to do that which can only be done by the 



330 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

man of exceptional and extraordinary abilities. Of 
course this means that only one man can do it, and 
it is a very rare kind of success or of greatness. The 
other is to do that which many men could do, but 
which, as a matter of fact, none of them actually does. 
This is the ordinary kind of greatness. Nobody but 
one of the world's rare geniuses could have written 
the Gettysburg speech or the Second Inaugural, or 
met as Lincoln met the awful crisis of the Civil 
War. But most of us can do the ordinary things 
which, however, most of us do not do. Any hardy, 
healthy man, fond of outdoor life, but not in the 
least an athlete, could lead the life I have led if he 
chose, and by 'choosing' I of course mean choosing 
to exercise the requisite industry, judgment, and fore- 
sight, none of a very marked type." 

That is Eoosevelt's idea of what a man — any man 
— may be physically. We may admire it; we may 
admire the hunter, the naturalist, the soldier — all 
full of physical vigor, but the glory of the Presi- 
dent is not really in these mere accessories so to 
speak, but in his hearty sympathy with the people 
— not any one class of people exclusively — and in 
his fearless devotion to the welfare of the country 
and in his unswerving loyalty to right always and 
everywhere. 

We all know how strenuously President Koose- 
velt has urged Congress to do justice to Cuba and 
how at last justice has been done. 

We all know how he has sought to establish just 
rates of transportation and how difficult the problem 
is to solve. We all know how he has done what he 
could to regulate the Beef Combine, and I think 
we all begin to realize that combinations of capital 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 331 

so gigantic as the Oil and Beef Combines are hard 
to control perfectly, and that, however well disposed 
a president may be and however earnest he may be 
to protect the people against the oppression of capi- 
talistic combinations, he can not do what is needed 
unless he can have the hearty support of Congress 
co-operating with him by passing the necessary laws 
and we all know further that such support the presi- 
dent does not always have from the United States 
Senate. Just why the United States Senate should 
be an obstacle to the president does not at first sight 
appear. Is it because the senators are men of base 
character? Two or three of them have indeed been 
convicted of crimes and have been kept out of prison 
only by the law's notorious delays or by death, but we 
can hardly suppose they are sample senators. Is 
it because the Senate is so full of rich men and 
their sympathy with combines and trusts and other 
methods of high finance? Is it because the methods 
by which these rich men have secured their elec- 
tion to the Senate are such as to put them in the 
class of the law breakers from the start and there- 
fore to insure their perpetual sympathy with other 
rich law breakers? Is it because there are so many 
senators who can be made to do whatever rich cor- 
porations ask, either because they have already re- 
ceived their reward from these corporations or else 
they expect to receive their reward; or is it because 
so many senators are directly or indirectly connected 
with these corporations, stockholders let in on the 
ground floor, attorneys who have received big fees 
in the past, and expect to receive such fees 
again as soon as it is safe to do so, sons-in-law of 
the big officials who run the corporations? Why, 



332 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

the waj r s in which senators can be related to and in- 
terested in these corporations and trusts and rail- 
roads and other forms of aggregated capital, are 
almost innumerable; and there is no security or 
safety for the people except in choosing as senator 
a man of such character and principle as to render 
it impossible for him to be secretly on the side of 
law breakers and oppressors of the people, while 
seemingly serving the people. Such a man was the 
late Orville H. Piatt, of Connecticut, who died last 
year, after a service of nearly thirty years in the 
Senate. He was a man of republican simplicity, of 
high character, of lofty ideals, and a true states- 
man, and when his body was borne to the grave 
in the country town of Washington, Connecticut, 
borne to the grave in the farm wagon drawn by 
the farm horses, and followed by the vice-president 
of the United States and a company of senators and 
other friends on foot, it was a spectacle of olden 
time simplicity that might well put to blush the 
ostentatious display at funerals of much less worthy 
men. Orville H. Piatt, of Connecticut, author of the 
Piatt amendment by which Cuba and the United 
States were brought into proper relations, and by 
which Cuba has been saved from permanent revolu- 
tion, served his country as a patriotic statesman 
should serve it, not seeking his own gain but the 
good of all. 

O for the day when the people can vote directly 
in the choice of United States senators! The day 
will come. God grant it may come soon. Be sure 
that when it does come, the character of the Senate 
will be speedily changed. It will no longer be a rich 
man's club. It will no longer contain senators who 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 333 

represent special interests instead of the people. It 
will no longer as a whole be a body nn willing to do 
anything themselves and unwilling that anybody else 
shall do anything. It will no longer be a body throw- 
ing every obstacle possible in the way of legislation 
recommended by a president voicing the wishes of 
the millions of people, but it will be a body as sen- 
sitive to public opinion as is the House of Repre- 
sentatives and nothing more could be asked. But 
meanwhile, let the states look to it that unworthy 
senators are not re-elected and that good men are 
elected instead. If senators have been faithful in 
the past and can be relied on to do what is right 
in the future, let them be retained in office, for their 
power and usefulness will grow the longer they serve. 
But if senators are not such men, the sooner their 
places are filled with better men, the sooner the people 
of the country will get what they are longing for, 
and what President Roosevelt is trying to give them 
— a square deal. 

I need hardly say anything about the great place 
in the eyes of the world which President Roosevelt 
fills by reason of his achievements as the great peace 
maker. Two mighty powers had been in conflict 
on sea and land in a war attended by unprecedented 
loss of life, and the most spectacular naval battle 
the world has ever known, on the result of which 
the fate of empires depended. The world had looked 
on with astonishment at the vigor and power of the 
successful belligerent and the comparative weakness 
and incapacity of the less successful one, though the 
one that at the opening of the war was supposed to 
be the mightier. Men had been slaughtered by the 
tens of thousands. Ships had been shattered and 



334: THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

sunk that a generation ago would have -been in- 
vincible. The world sickened of the contest. But 
neither belligerent would propose a cessation of hos- 
tilities. And no European power was ready to step 
in between the warring nations and ask for peace. 
What neither England nor Germany nor France 
dared to do, Theodore Koosevelt did. He brought 
about a conference between the representatives of 
the warring nations, and when that conference was 
ready to break up in disagreement, he still by his 
personal influence at Tokyo and St. Petersburg kept 
it together until out of what semed hopeless and 
irreconcilable disagreement, there came at last har- 
mony and peace, no more bloodshed, no more wid- 
owed or childless women in Japan and Eussia, no 
more dead or wounded and dying soldiers or sailors, 
but peace; and from every quarter of the globe, from 
emperors and kings and pope and people, there came 
one mighty chorus of praise and joy, and thanks to 
the brave and wise man who, as president of the 
United States, had blessed the world by securing 
peace, and had at the same time lifted our country 
to a higher place in the honor and admiration of the 
world than that which had been secured for us by 
Dewey and his associate heroes in the Spanish war. 
So that to-day, the big club is wreathed round with 
olive leaves of peace, and our nation's attitude be- 
fore the world is, more than ever before, "With mal- 
ice towards none and charity for all." "Blessed are 
the peacemakers for they shall be called the chil- 
dren of God." And in this same spirit of culti- 
vating peace and good will the president made his 
visit to the South and especially to fever-stricken 
New Orleans. No wish is dearer to his heart than 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 335 

that the wounds made by our Civil War may be 
healed, and North and South become one again in 
patriotic devotion to our common country. As show- 
ing what he may have accomplished in this respect, 
I quote an incident as I find it reported in a New 
York paper. "Mrs. T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson, 
to whom the President paid his respects in Charlotte. 
N. C, has expressed her appreciation of the com- 
pliment. After voicing her own pleasure, she says: 
"My faithful old cook was perhaps the most elated 
person in the parlor. She told me afterward that 
'We was the bontonest folks in town, as nobody else 
had the President and his wife in their houses.' May 
His Excellency live long to be a blessing and a 
powerful great good to this grand country of ours." 
That from the widow of Stonewall Jackson is de- 
lightful. I can not attempt to enumerate the other 
measures of importance which President Roosevelt 
has suggested and urged. He called a convention 
of all the governors of the states to meet at the 
White House, to devise means for the conservation 
of our natural resources. It was a memorable con- 
vention and its proceedings touched high water mark 
when Roosevelt stepped to the front and said : "Gen- 
tlemen, I want you to understand what I am trying 
to do. I am trying to make it impossible that there 
should be any twilight zone between the national and 
state governments, so that no corporation or trust 
can exist without being responsible to one or the 
other." The convention cheered him with wild en- 
thusiasm. President Roosevelt has done his best 
to control and regulate the corporations, to abolish 
abuses by which the great corporations were able to 
crush their more feeble competitors, and for this pur- 



336 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

pose he has set in operation the legal machinery of 
the country without stint, with the result that many 
abuses have ceased, and the need of further legisla- 
tion has been made to appear. It is for Congress to 
see that his wise recommendations are carried out. 
He has done his best to secure a square deal for 
every one. I might enumerate many other measures 
urged by the President — irrigation, waterways, civil 
service applied to the census taking, and others al- 
most without limit. Even in these closing days of 
his official life, he is earnestly striving to keep Cali- 
fornia from insulting Japan, and is doing his best 
to add to the comfort and happiness of the farmers 
of our country. It has been a dull week in these 
last seven years when President Eoosevelt did not 
do something or say something to make the American 
people sit up and think. 

And now with a full sense of the greatness of 
our President and of the work he has accomplished, 
let me, in closing, pay a just tribute to the first mar- 
tyr president — the only real martyr president — Abra- 
ham Lincoln, the third of the great presidents of 
whoni I proposed to speak. 

Abraham Lincoln was born in a Kentucky cabin, 
one hundred years ago to-day, of Virginia parents, 
and grew up in poverty, with little opportunity for 
gaining an education, a poor white, motherless at 
the age of nine, with only a totally illiterate father 
to care for him. Yet he became president of our 
country in the very crisis of our nation's life. Of 
education in school he had almost none. But he 
read and studied by himself, what is more he thought, 
so that all knowledge that came within his reach 
was assimilated and made his own. The humble pur- 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 337 

suits in which he spent the earlier years of his man- 
hood were made to contribute to his intellectual 
development so that he was constantly preparing for 
something higher. He went as a boatman to New 
Orleans, and caught there a view of slavery at its 
worst which he never forgot and whose influence he 
never ceased to feel. But little did he know for what 
he was fitting himself or in what a terrible and sub- 
lime contest he was to lead the people to freedom 
and perpetual Union. He was more than forty years 
old before events occurred which really roused him 
to take an interested part in the great battle for 
justice and humanity. 

The year 1850 was the period of compromises 
when statesmen were busy in Washington devising 
methods by which the country might safely continue 
half slave and half free. Clay was exerting all his mar- 
velous eloquence and powers of persuasion in favor 
of his Omnibus Bill, by which the slavery question 
should be forever settled; Calhoun was fighting with 
all his powers of logic for the idea of a confederacy 
with each state largely independent instead of a 
nation of which the states were parts ; Webster, still 
hoping for the presidency, was making seventh of 
March speeches, thus losing the support of the North 
without gaining at all the support of the South; 
Whigs and Democrats alike were doing their best 
to cover over and suppress the eruptions of the vol- 
canic slavery agitation, each party vying with the 
other to show itself the most abject servant of the 
slave power ; and it seemed as if by universal consent 
the slavery question had been settled and would 
no more disturb the unity of the nation. Calhoun, 
Clay, Webster, the giants of the Senate, died, one 



338 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

after another, between the spring of 1850 and the 
autumn of 1852. All that their statesmanship had 
been able to accomplish in the interest of peace, 
remained undisturbed for two years, when once more 
the heavens were red and the earth on fire with a 
new and more terrible eruption of the slavery Vesu- 
vius. 

Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, urged thereto 
by Archibald Dixon, of Kentucky, introduced the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854 and its passage by 
Congress and approval by President Pierce swept 
away every existing barrier between freedom and 
slavery in the territories. The result was a political 
uprising in the North, hardly less memorable than 
that which came seven years later with the attack on 
Fort Sumter. For the first time in a half century 
the moral and religious sentiment of the North was 
aroused, and men who had cared little or nothing 
for politics during the dreary decades when sub- 
serviency to the South was the only key to success, 
and when the radicalism of the Abolitionists defying 
alike the Constitution and the laws, repelled law- 
abiding citizens from co-operating with them, now 
sounded the note of alarm and hastened to join hands 
with all who were willing to stand together for free- 
dom in the territories. 

Among these was Abraham Lincoln. He had 
cared little for polities when neither great party 
was fighting for much but the spoils. But now an 
issue had come into which every right-thinking man 
could throw his whole soul. He had never forgotten 
his visit to New Orleans in the early days, and the 
sight then witnessed, of men, women, and children 
sold like cattle, with no more regard to their wishes 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 339 

and affections than if they had been cattle. It was a 
new Abe Lincoln who caught up the standard of Free 
Soil in Illinois and bore it bravely through the mem- 
orable contest with Stephen A. Douglas for the sen- 
atorship. Douglas did not care whether slavery 
were voted up or were voted down. Mr. Lincoln did 
care. He wanted slavery voted down. He stood for 
right, for justice, for humanity. He was as skillful 
in debate as was the little giant. He was stronger 
than he in pure logic. He was greater in moral ele- 
vation. His speeches were a revelation to the coun- 
try. He forced Douglas to take a position which 
indeed gained him the senatorship, but later lost 
him the presidency. 

After the contest for the senatorship was over, 
Mr. Lincoln went East. He gave an address in Cooper 
Institute, New York, on the opinions of the fathers 
of the republic respecting slavery that was as com- 
plete a demonstration as any problem or theorem in 
Euclid. He spoke in New Haven and in other cities 
of Connecticut. Then it was that I first saw him and 
heard him. I had heard Tom Corwin and had been 
disappointed. He lacked moral earnestness. I had 
heard Wendell Phillips and had been delighted. But 
he lacked practical plans for action. I had heard 
Beecher and had been stirred by his enthusiasm, 
half spiritual and half militant. But here was a man 
from the West who had had no such training as those 
men, who had none of the graces of manner or of per- 
son which belonged to some of them, who was tall, 
and lank, and homely, who yet had the power to 
convince your understanding, to make you see things 
exactly as he saw them, to make you feel what he 
felt, to capture and hold captive your very soul,. 



340 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

and all this without a single recognized art of the 
rhetorician. Plain, clear, logical, forceful — the great 
cause for which he spoke glorified him as he glorified 
it. He made a political fight grand by imparting to 
it a moral quality. It was no longer a struggle for 
office, it was a battle for righteousness. In no other 
kind of a contest could Abraham Lincoln have come to 
the front. In no other could he have won the fadeless 
crown of glory which he now wears and will wear 
through all the coming centuries. 

If there were no sorrow in the world, pity and 
sympathy would be unnecessary. If there were no 
poison, no antidote would be needed. If there were 
no wrong and cruelty, heroic self-sacrifice would not 
be required. And if there had been no slavery issue, 
Abraham Lincoln would not have been called from 
the obscurity of his country home to guide the nation 
through its momentous struggle for life. The great 
cause demanded the great man. Lincoln answered 
the call and, in a most marvelous degree, met all the 
needs of the crisis. 

Elected president, he never forgot that he was 
a Southern man by birth, and his heart ached all 
through the great struggle for the sufferings of the 
Southern people. Yet he never flinched in pressing- 
forward in the contest, and never for a moment lost 
sight of the great end to be secured — union first — 
and then union and universal freedom. He had no 
malice in his heart. His first inaugural address 
would have won to his side any people not already 
in the grasp of the mad frenzy of revolution. But 
it come too late. The die was cast. The long series 
of agitating questions which had distracted the coun- 
try for seventy years were now to be settled on battle- 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 341 

fields, the only place where they could be finally set- 
tled. Into the great struggle the South entered with 
a cheery spirit and with undoubting expectation 
of victory. Into the same struggle the North entered 
with a blind determination to win and a slowly gen- 
dered conception of the magnitude of the struggle. 

The participants in the contest on both sides 
were brave and heroic. Victory under such circum- 
stances was hard to obtain, and defeat could not be 
disgraceful. The leaders in the contest on both 
sides came into view like stars in the heavens, and 
many of them faded out of sight ; but the real planets 
with their clear shining remained, in the sky to the 
end and are there still — Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
Thomas, Lee, Jackson, Johnston — these at least are 
still shining, and now as the peaceful influence of time 
is felt, they are blending together their rays of glory 
on the country which they all loved, and for which 
all would gladly have fought against a foreign foe. 

And through it all, the long four years of death 
and sorrow, Lincoln waited only for the hour of 
victory that he might be merciful. Bitterly abused 
by his enemies, sometimes betrayed by his friends, 
often annoyed by the impatience of the over-zealous, 
he experienced a large measure of ingratitude in 
return for generosity, while he was bearing on his 
own great heart the sorrows of his country — of 
friends and foes alike. He came out of the crucible 
of affliction purified like fine gold. And when at the 
dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, after a 
great oration by Edward Everett, a prince among 
orators, Lincoln spoke for five minutes, he in that 
short time effaced from men's memory all the rounded 
periods of Everett's scholarly eloquence, as with the 



342 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

plainness of one of the common people, with the 
pathos of a great heart suffering almost to breaking, 
and with the inspiration of a Hebrew seer, he spoke 
those memorable sentences of consecration and hope 
that will live in the world's highest eloquence so long 
as the English language shall be spoken. 

To appreciate this address one should remember 
the circumstances under which it was delivered. The 
battle of Gettysburg was fought on the first three 
days of July, 1863. More than 20,000 on each side 
were either killed, wounded, or missing. On the 
fourth of July Lee was in retreat towards Virginia. 
On the same day Vicksburg surrendered to General 
Grant. It seemed as if the crisis had passed. But 
the final outcome of the war was not yet determined. 
The war was to continue a year and three quarters 
longer. 

It was the 19th of November, 1863, when the 
cemetery at Gettysburg was dedicated and Mr. Lin- 
coln made his memorable address. It was just two 
months after the battle of Chickamauga, and less 
than a week before the great battle at Chattanooga 
and Lookout Mountain. The shadow of danger and 
sorrow was resting on Lincoln as he spoke. Let 
me repeat his memorable words. 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth 
upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can 
long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. 
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final 
resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that na- 
tion might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 343 

should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — 
we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have conse- 
crated it, far above our power to add or detract. The world 
will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but 
it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, 
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It 
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain- 
ing before us, — that from these honored dead we take increased 
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under 
God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not 
perish from the earth. 

The years went on — the rebellion broke down at 
last — was crushed, in fact — Lee and Johnston sur- 
rendered — the union was safe, freedom had been 
secured — joy filled the hearts of the victors — the 
cup of blessing full to overflowing was just ready for 
the nation's lips, when on the evening of Good Fri- 
day — the day on which our Savior was crucified, 
the bullet of an assassin sped on its fatal way and 
before the sun of another day was well on its course 
in the heavens, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln had 
gone back to God who gave it, and there was left 
to a sorrow-stricken people only his lifeless body 
over which to mourn. And the nation literally lifted 
up its voice and wept. 

In the home of a distinguished citizen of Min- 
neapolis there hangs a large picture, the portrait 
of Abraham Lincoln. Many of you doubtless have 
seen it. It is an admirable likeness. I wish I could 
describe it to you as an artist might, but I can not. 

-23 



344 THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 

The face, though serious, has none of the wan and 
sad look that came to it in later days. It is pleasant 
and peaceful. But the one thing to which face and 
figure alike bear witness is strength, not intellectual 
nor physical strength mainly, but moral strength, 
backed by both of these. There is nothing to indicate 
that the subject is not a gentleman, yet you would 
never think of labeling the picture "A Portrait of a 
Gentleman," but you would have no hesitation in 
labeling it "The Portrait of a Man." Great strength 
of character is here joined with intellectual power and 
sweetness of spirit. And such was Abraham Lincoln 
— strong, rugged, forceful, true, yet gentle, tender 
and of almost infinite charity. 

In Winston Churchill's novel, The Crisis, there 
is a passage describing the visit to Lincoln of a 
young Southern woman who hated him, as the enemy 
of the South, to beg for the pardon of her cousin 
who had been condemned to death as a spy. When 
at last President Lincoln grants the pardon, as he 
had from the first intended to do, he said slowly — 
and the words remind me of his Gettysburg speech — 
"I am sparing his life, because the time for which we 
have been waiting and longing for four years is now 
at hand — the time to be merciful. Let us all thank 
God for it." 

No wonder the daughter of the South was affected. 
She crossed the room, her head lifted, her heart lifted, 
to where this man of sorrows stood smiling down at 
her. "Mr. Lincoln," she faltered "I did not know 
you when I came here. Oh, how I wish that every 
man, woman, and child in the South might see you 
as I have seen you to-day. I think — I think that 
some of their bitterness might be taken away." 



THREE GREAT PRESIDENTS 345 

Perhaps it might have been if they could have 
seen him as he was. God only knows. But it was 
not to be. Like Moses, the liberator of the Hebrews, 
who was permitted to see the promised land but not 
to enter it, Abraham Lincoln, the liberator of the en- 
slaved negroes, was permitted to catch a glimpse of 
the country redeemed but was not permitted to share 
in either the triumphs or the struggles of the new 
nation. It is as if, like our blessed Savior, the re- 
demption which he wrought could be completed only 
by his death. 

God grant that neither sacrifice may have been 
made in vain. God grant that this nation may firmly 
tread the path of honor and justice for which the 
work and sufferings of the martyred dead have so 
grandly prepared the way, and that the coming men, 
the young men of America, may "highly resolve" that 
Lincoln shall not have died in vain, but that the 
nation shall under God yet have a new birth of 
honor, and "that the government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth." 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE* 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I know very well that the kind friends who have 
urged me to be present and to speak at this meet- 
ing very much overestimate the value of my services, 
and that in what I shall say I can not hope to real- 
ize their anticipations; yet I am very glad to be 
here and to be permitted to speak to you on an 
occasion of such real importance as this which has 
called us together. 

The proposition which we are to consider, as 
I understand it, is this: That the people of the 
three states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, com- 
bining, as far as may be, existing denominational 
colleges and adding liberal endowments, shall estab- 
lish here a great Christian college which shall meet 
the wants of these three states for higher Christian 
education. 

The colleges of New England almost without ex- 
ception were established as denominational institu- 
tions. Yale in Connecticut, Harvard, Amherst, and 
Williams in Massachusetts, Middlebury in Vermont, 
Dartmouth in New Hampshire, and Bowdoin in 

♦Delivered at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, Novem- 
ber 18th, 1908, before an audience of leading citizens of Washington, 
Oregon, and Idaho, gathered to devise means for making Whitman 
College truly representative of the three states. 



348 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

Maine, were all founded by the Congregationalists. 
To the best of my knowledge and belief, all of these 
colleges have to-day thrown off the denominational 
character, and are simply Christian institutions, 
where there is no proselyting attempted and where 
there is no danger that the student of any denomina- 
tion will be enticed away from his special faith; and 
I believe that, as a result, in Yale College for exam- 
ple there are actually more Episcopal students than 
Congregational, while the accomplished Secretary of 
the College, Mr. Stokes, who is here for your help, 
himself a loyal Episcopalian, has as large a field 
of influence and does as much good in the college 
as if he were a Congregationalist. These New Eng- 
land colleges all stand for Christianity as they 
should; but they have grown in breadth and charity 
and power, and are able to train men for useful- 
ness in church and state, no matter to what branch 
of the church they may belong. All of these col- 
leges by reason of this change of attitude have to- 
day a much larger constituency than they would 
otherwise have, they exert a wider influence, they 
enjoy larger revenues, they place their stamp of in- 
tellectual and religious character upon a larger num- 
ber of young men who are to take a prominent 
part in marking out the destiny of our republic, 
and they do a more effective work for patriotism 
and Christianity than would have been possible if 
the old limitations had been retained. And for my- 
self I heartily approve of their changed attitude and, 
although I am a Congregationalist, I rejoice that 
they are no longer engaged in educating Congre- 
gationalists exclusively, or in trying to win young 
men to Congregationalism, and that they are engaged 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 349 

in the much nobler work of training young men to 
be Christian patriots who will serve well their coun- 
try and who will help bring in the kingdom of God. 

Yet I am a sincere friend to the denominational 
college, as I am of every institution which does good 
work in the cause of education. I have no quarrel 
with men and women who want their sons and 
daughters to be educated under the same kind of 
influence which prevails in their special church. I 
recognize the fact that there is room enough for all; 
that the work to be done for education is so great 
that all the resources of the public school system, 
and of Christian and denominational zeal, are not 
too great to meet the demands of the increasing 
millions of young men and women who are to be 
trained for the great life which is to be theirs in 
this mighty land where popular government pre- 
vails. I have never in all my life sought, in the 
slightest degree, to turn a student from his purpose 
to go to a denominational college; and I have even, 
when accident has thrown into my hands a student 
who had intended to enter a denominational col- 
lege, advised him to go to the college he intended 
to enter when he left home, and, if he found it agree- 
able, to remain there. 

I have been at the head of the University of 
Minnesota twenty-four years, and in that time have 
seen the student body grow from less than three 
hundred to forty-six hundred. This growth has un- 
doubtedly interfered with the growth of the half 
dozen denominational colleges of the state; but these 
colleges know very well that the University has not 
grown because I have attempted to pull down or 
weaken the denominational colleges; that it has 



350 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

grown because I have tried to build up and make 
more useful the State University itself. They know 
well that there is no spirit in me of hostility to them ; 
and, as a consequence, I believe I enjoy the real 
friendship and good will of every president in the 
state, and certainly every president in the state and 
every college in the state has my hearty good will. 
Carleton College, the Congregationalist college, has 
already cast off its denominational garments, and 
occupies now the same position as the New England 
colleges, a Christian college devoted to Christian and 
not denominational education. 

I think I need not dwell upon the value of a 
good college. The safety of the state depends upon 
education and religion. The intelligent, educated 
man ought to be worth more to the state than the 
ignorant man; and he is, other things being equal. 
Of course there are bad men who are educated and 
there are good men who are not educated. But 
the bad man would be no better without education 
and the good man would be no worse if he w T ere 
educated. Public opinion rules in this country and 
public opinion is the aggregate sentiment of the 
people. There must be leaders of public opinion, 
and they must be intelligent. But it is hardly less 
necessary for the people generally to be trained to 
think, otherwise they will follow the leadership not 
of wise men but of shallow pretenders who will lead 
only to disaster. The higher the standard of edu- 
cation in a state and the more general advanced 
education, the better ought to be the legislation and 
the more perfect the administration of justice and 
the more dominant the civic virtues of temperance, 
charity, and justice. 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 351 

There is something very inspiring in the thought 
of the West. I feel it in Minnesota in contrast 
with the East. I feel it even more out here, where 
the mountains are so high and the rivers so numer- 
ous and mighty, and the areas of states are so mag- 
nificent, and the forests are so grand, and the prod- 
ucts of the soil are so abundant, and the waves of 
the greatest ocean of the worlfcl are breaking on your 
shores, and the waters are waiting to serve alike 
the West and the further East as the minister of 
commerce. It is a region where men ought to grow. 
You can raise nothing better, or nobler, or more valu- 
able — and these men are now your boys. To train 
them for God and country you need a first-class col- 
lege. 

Here you have in the three states interested in 
building up a great college in Walla Walla 250,000 
square miles of territory, that is 60 times as large 
as Connecticut, and Connecticut has Yale. These 
three states probably have many hundred times the 
wealth Connecticut had when Yale College was 
founded, and possibilities of wealth almost illimit- 
able to be developed in the future. It seems an easy 
thing to realize the plans which have been made for a 
great college in this place — and it is. You can do 
it, with hardly a fraction of the self-denial which 
built Yale. There is no other enterprise into which 
you can put your money that will tell so mightily 
for the intelligence of the people, for wise methods 
of development of the natural resources of your states, 
and for your reputation at home and abroad, as will 
a great and reputable and successful institution of 
learning, as broad as Christianity and as compre- 
hensive as human knowledge. What gives more fame 



352 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

to Massachusetts than Harvard University? For 
what is Connecticut more honored than for Yale 
University. What is it that makes Michigan known 
outside of her own borders but her University? When 
the territory of Minnesota was organized there were 
three towns that were competitors for the location 
of public institutions. St. Paul took the Capitol; 
Stillwater took the State Prison; Minneapolis had 
to be content with the University and she was ter- 
ribly disappointed that she did not get the State 
Prison instead — there was more profit in furnishing 
supplies. But to-day the University is worth more 
to Minneapolis than both Capitol and Prison would 
be. It draws the best kind of people to the city 
to educate their children; and, as it sends out its 
500 or 600 graduates every year, it notably raises 
the intellectual standing of the whole state, and in 
a measure of the whole west even as far as Wash- 
ington. Is it not worth while to establish here a great 
college that shall go on its way in all the centuries 
to come, doing the work that must be done and can 
never be finished till human life on this planet shall 
come to an end; fitting generations after generations 
to take the place and bear the responsibilities and 
do the work of the preceding generations as they 
pass away? Is it not — to build such an institution 
— as near building for eternity as is possible in this 
world? Do not the men who found and sustain such 
an institution secure for themselves an ideal im- 
mortality, as the forces which they have set at work 
go on, century after century, training, ennobling, 
inspiring the incoming generations, and ever holding 
up before them higher ideals of what the individual 
life should be, what the scholar should be, and what 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 353 

the scholar should do for his associates and for the 
state? It can not but be a joy to think that we 
have had something to do with setting in operation 
forces that will go on forever; for a great college 
will never die, and will forever train the children 
to the last generation for noble and beneficent lives 
and for the highest service in the state. 

I have not come twenty-five hundred miles to tell 
you, intelligent, enterprising, successful business 
men of the West, that a great college established 
here will pay and more than pay dollar for dollar 
all that you expend upon it. In one sense it will 
and even more, but in another sense it will not. You 
do not expect to receive again the money which you 
spend every day for food and necessaries and luxuries 
for your family. But you do expect to receive it again 
and you do receive it again a hundred fold, transmut- 
ed into the comfort and peace and joy and happiness 
of wife and children dearer to you than your own life. 
And the college will never return your money dollar 
for dollar, but it will return to you what you will 
valne far more than the money. It will render to you 
great service which only it can render. It will train 
your children for higher and nobler work. It will 
raise the standard of education in every school in 
your three states. It will furnish you men to solve 
the difficult problems of your growth. It will create 
a taste for culture and for knowledge. It will make 
your whole country, doubly blessed of God as it 
is in its climate and resources, a place where think- 
ing men and earnest men and men with a purpose 
will be glad to live. 

The modern college must, in the nature of things, 
be very unlike the college of a hundred or even fifty 



354 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

years ago. It can not be carried on successfully 
without an immensely increased expenditure of 
money. The old college consisted of rooms with a 
teacher. The new college means laboratories with 
expensive equipments. It means seminar rooms with 
special libraries, and vastly multiplied subjects in 
the curriculum. When I was an undergraduate at 
Yale, Latin and Greek with a chance at French, 
mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy, com- 
position, intellectual philosophy, political economy, 
and a taste of history and chemistry, constituted 
about the whole of the college course. It did ns 
good. We had to work. But it would be nothing 
more than a skeleton of the college course of to-day. 
The apparatus amounted to nothing. Now physics 
must have its laboratories equipped with tens of thou- 
sands of dollars' worth of apparatus. Hundreds of 
microscopes are required for special work in biology. 
Chemistry under the old system was taught by lec- 
tures. The students did nothing in the laboratory. 
They sat in rows in the lecture room and watched 
the professor mix chemicals and noted how the mix- 
ture changed color and became blue or green or yel- 
low or red as the professor said it would, and when 
the result did not prove to be what he had predicted, 
they laughed. They got no real knowledge of chem- 
istry. Now the students do things. They mix the 
chemicals. They experiment. They demonstrate the 
principles of chemistry by doing what in the olden 
time only the professor did. They swarm in the 
laboratories. They use up many thousands of dol- 
lars' worth of materials. They are waited on and 
overlooked and guided by a dozen instructors instead 
of one. And it all costs money. The necessary in- 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 355 

crease in the number of instructors and in the ap- 
paratus and supplies of materials makes a largely 
increased expenditure inevitable. The old education 
was good as far as it went. It trained men and 
sometimes developed power in them. But it made 
little of the sciences; and to-day education with its 
outlook on life makes much of the sciences and must 
do so, if men are to be trained for the multitude 
of new and important occupations which have come 
into vogue. It is a race to see which institution shall 
offer the most and the best. And it is a hard race 
for the small college. All honor to the patient and 
devoted men who run the small college and doubt- 
less do great good to their pupils. But the trend 
of youth is not towards the small college but towards 
the great universities and colleges. What is wanted, 
then, is a college large enough to embrace all essential 
studies in its curriculum and to secure teachers of 
sufficient ability and in required number, and with 
money enough to purchase adequate equipment and 
pay living salaries. And the only way to secure such 
a college, where no one wealthy donor is ready to 
found and support it, is for the people of reason- 
ably large areas of country to unite and find as they 
always find that in union there is strength. 

It was my privilege a short time ago to read 
in the World To-Day articles on Oregon, Washing- 
ton, and Idaho, written each by a citizen of the state 
described. Of Washington it was said: "Whether 
dealing in generalities or in actual figures, when 
treating of Washington and its possibilities it is im- 
possible to avoid the superlative. Last year the 
wheat crop in eastern Washington exceeded forty 
million bushels; the Inland Empire, as that portion 



356 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

of the state is known, offers to support millions of 
industrious and happy people. Washington is equal 
in area to all of the New England states with Dela- 
ware and the District of Columbia added: its lat- 
est possibilities far surpass anything known in those 
commonwealths. It invites the man of capital and 
the industrious man, able and determined to make 
a home for himself. Its citizenship is known for its 
progressiveness. Its public school lands afford a 
basis to provide an income with which to build an 
unexcelled school system. In short, its possibilities 
are almost limitless." 

Of Oregon I learn that she possesses every cli- 
matic condition known to the temperate zone. That 
the Oregon apple surpasses all others. That it will 
not be long before the fruit crop will be $40,000,000 
or $50,000,000 a year. That its climate is health- 
ful and delightful. That she has incomparable scen- 
ery of limpid streams and endless stretches of noble 
forest, snow-crowned mountains, and fertile valleys. 
That her Avater power is remarkable; her products 
of lumber, beef, fish, and dairy immense; and that 
unselfish patriotism is doing everything possible to 
improve the commonwealth, and love of home is 
greater than in any other state. 

And Idaho — larger than New England — 20,000,- 
000 acres of timber land. 17,000,000 acres of graz- 
ing land. 14,000,000 acres of agricultural land and 
five or six million of mineral land. Wheat 15,000,000 
bushels. Oats 28,000,000. 9,000,000 head of hogs, 
cattle, and sheep. Hay crop beyond computation. 
Soil, irrigated, richest to be found anywhere. But 
best of all the people are devoted to educational 
interests, from the common school to the higher 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 357 

education. "They know," I quote from Senator 
Borah, "that such wonderful wealth as the state 
possesses, will in the hands of an educated and loyal 
citizenship bring those civic virtues which exalt a 
people, and that the same wealth in the hands of a 
people adventurous, devoid of culture and refinement, 
is a certain precursor of state degradation." 

Here you have three states that in the aggre- 
gate are more than three and a half times as large 
as all New England, and vastly superior to New 
England in the fertility of soil, variety and abund- 
ance of products, in water power and facilities for 
manufacturing, and possessed of as splendid harbors 
and coast line for trade with China and Japan as 
New England has for trade with Europe. Your 
ability to establish a great college is immeasurably 
greater than was New England's at the founding 
of any of her great colleges. Yet New England has 
to-day at least fifteen eminently respectable colleges 
or universities, well supported, all of them growing 
in number of students and in their influence on the 
country. The task which is proposed, to build a 
great institution for Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, 
is one of very little difficulty as it seems to me 
compared with what New England in her compara- 
tive poverty has accomplished. And if you consider 
for a moment how much the colleges have added 
to the reputation and influence of New England 
and from that infer how much a first-class college 
would do for these three imperial states of the West, 
your enthusiasm must kindle at the prospect, and 
your resolution must speedily be taken that the col- 
lege shall be established. 

But what will be the attitude of the states and 



358 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

the state universities towards this new college? Will 
they regard it as an intruder, an unwelcome rival, 
interfering with the successful prosecution of the 
work of public education to which the states are 
all so thoroughly committed and for which the state 
universities exist? Perhaps you can answer these 
questions better than I can, for you know your own 
people and institutions better than I do. But I 
do believe, I can not for a moment doubt, that 
your new college, if made worthy of the states to 
which it is to minister, will be regarded with pride 
by all the states concerned, and that every state 
university will cordially welcome it as a powerful 
ally in the war against ignorance and for the dis- 
semination of knowledge. I do not believe there 
is a president of a state university in any one of 
these states who would not be ready to bid you 
"God speed" in your work of establishing and main- 
taining such a noble Christian college as you pro- 
pose. There is really nothing petty or mean about 
the states and I hope the same may be said of the 
state universities and their presidents. 

If there is anything to be done in the way of 
education that we of the state universities can not 
do, we are heartily glad, I am sure, to have institu- 
tions established by private benevolence that can 
and will do this necessary work. If you think that 
there ought to be more religious instruction and 
more religions influence exerted on the students than 
is possible in a state university, we are only too glad 
to have you provide for this religions instruction 
and influence in your own way and by methods of 
your own choosing. We of the state universities 
are trustees for all the people of the state. We can 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 359 

not teach Protestantism to the injury of Catholicism. 
We can not teach special creeds of one denomination 
to the destruction of the creeds of the other denomi- 
nations. But some things we can do and we do do. 
I would not stay one day in a state university if 
I were hampered in the maintenance of Christianity, 
and were compelled to recognize agnosticism as being 
as good as Christianity. I said to the Regents of 
the University of Minnesota in my inaugural ad- 
dress that I must be free as a believer in Chris- 
tianity, and daily service in chapel, with singing of 
hymns, reading of Scriptures, and prayer to God, 
has gone on all these years, and hundreds of stu- 
dents daily attend these services, their attendance 
being entirely voluntary and not on compulsion. The 
atmosphere, so to speak, of the University of Minne- 
sota is as Christian as the atmosphere of any col- 
lege in the land. But I can not turn the educa- 
tional work of the University out of its course. I 
can not suspend recitations for the sake of holding 
prayer meetings nor stop the established order of 
work for the sake of promoting a revival, nor can 
I do very much religious teaching, except so far 
as the students in voluntary associations of the 
Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. may invite such 
teaching. The students know where I stand and 
what I stand for, and I hope that their lives are 
influenced for good by my attitude and my occasional 
addresses to them; but for all that the Christian 
college can do more in the line of Christian teach- 
ing and work than the state university can, and 
where the work is not overdone I have no doubt it 
is exceedingly beneficial. We of the state univer- 
sities are simply glad that the Christian colleges 

—24 



360 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

can do more of this work than we can. We wel- 
come, then, the Christian college as an ally in the 
work of education. First, because there is so much 
work to be done that the state university can not 
alone do it all. Second, because there are many par- 
ents who wish their children to be under stricter 
guidance in matters of religious belief than they 
can be at a state university, and there should be 
Christian colleges where this guidance can be ob- 
tained. And third, because we of the state uni- 
versities heartily rejoice in every influence which 
tends to strengthen Christianity, to keep alive, in 
young people, the love of God and the love of neigh- 
bor, and to make the teachings of Jesus the directing 
principles of their lives; and we welcome the Chris- 
tian college as meaning to do this and, when wisely 
directed, actually doing it, and therein we rejoice. 
We have therefore no feeling of jealousy, envy, ill- 
will, or hostility towards the Christian . college. I 
am sure you will experience none of these malevolent 
feelings at the hands of any of your state univer- 
sities if you establish a great Christian college here; 
but, on the contrary, you will be met with the most 
hearty good wishes. At least you would receive this 
sort of treatment and encouragement from me, if 
I lived in one of these states and were an official in 
a state university. For the state university will 
never be out of work, never lack for students to' 
teach, never be without its own particular field to 
occupy, no matter how many Christian colleges may 
be founded, for back of it is the state, and the state 
will not die. 

I have thus spoken very frankly as to the prob- 
able feeling of the state universities towards your en- 



GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 361 

terprise, and if I have introduced too much the per- 
sonal note and have spoken from experience, I am 
sure you will forgive. I am not here for any selfish 
purpose, and certainly not to try to build up either 
the state university or the Christian college, the one 
at the expense of the other, but rather I am seeking 
to promote the welfare of both and therefore I am 
recommending what I believe will in the end be 
for the best interests of education in these great 
states and for the best interests of public and Chris- 
tian education and nurture. I hope I have not said 
a word that can cause the slightest unpleasant feel- 
ing in any one of you, for I really want you to have 
the best. 

Your forests will be cut down and will largely 
disappear. Your minerals may be exhausted. Your 
fisheries may cease to be profitable. Your soil must 
not lose its fertility and must continue to produce 
its wealth of food or men will perish. Economic 
and industrial conditions may change and wealth 
or poverty may result. But one thing will never 
change. Children will continue to be born into 
the world as helpless and as ignorant as they al- 
ways have been, and the greatest work of each gen- 
eration will always be to prepare the coming gener- 
ation to take the place of the departing generation. 
The work of education will never be done completely. 
It can never come to an end. We may safely leave 
the possible changes in the methods of creating 
wealth to each generation to take care of them as 
best they can. But for the training of the young 
for usefulness in this world and for happiness in 
the world to come, every generation is responsible 
directly to the coming generations and indirectly 



362 GREATER WHITMAN COLLEGE 

to all coming generations, and that responsibility 
not one of us can escape. We must do our duty 
to our children as the fathers did their duty to us. 



THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY* 

"The future of our country" is a subject upon 
which, at the present time, nearly every man has 
an opinion of his own. I can not doubt for a mo- 
ment that the future of our country will be essentially 
what we choose to make it. The consideration of 
the subject, therefore, to-night, is not so much a mat- 
ter of prophecy, as it is for the determination of a 
desirable policy. I am happy to believe that the 
opinions of our people are much less irreconcilable 
than might at first be supposed, the most conserva- 
tive being willing to admit that the conditions by 
which we are surrounded must in some measure af- 
fect our traditional policy, and the most radical being 
willing to admit that even with these conditions, 
our traditional policy should not be without its in- 
fluence. It should, however, be understood by both 
classes, that the policy of this country in the past 
has not been by any means as conservative as they 
are disposed to think. A people that, in their colo- 
nial state, waged eight years of war against the 
mightiest power of Europe, to obtain exemption from 
a comparatively insignificant tax imposed without 

*Delivered October 19th, 1898, at the Auditorium in Chicago, at 
the banquet in celebration of the Peace Jubilee, President McKinley 
and members of his cabinet being present. This was the closing address, 
and was delivered some time after midnight. 



364 THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 

their consent, and as a consequence, to their own 
great surprise and that of the rest of the world, 
secured their independence ; that persistently and suc- 
cessfully maintained their right against the claims 
of all nations to the entire territories west and north- 
west to the Mississipi River; that purchased the im- 
mense territory of Louisiana, stretching from the 
Mississippi and the Gulf west and northwest, nobody 
knew just how far, but beyond the limits of the 
wildest imagination of that day; that subsequently 
asserted and vindicated their right to the territory 
in the extreme Northwest, resting upon the Pacific 
coast; that took Florida from the grasp of Spain 
into their own arms; that annexed Texas; that 
wrested by war from Mexico what now constitutes 
half a dozen large states and territories of semi- 
tropical climate and production; that purchased of 
Russia, at the close of an exhausting civil war, ice- 
bound Alaska stretching away into the Arctic circle 
— a people that have done all this within a century 
can not be justly charged with a very wide departure 
from their traditional policy if they should conclude 
now once more to expand. Nor does it make the 
slightest difference that the expansion is now to be 
to the islands of the sea instead of to new parts 
of the continent as heretofore, for the people whose 
navies, under Dewey and his compeers, ride the 
ocean in triumph, need not care whether their ter- 
ritory is riveted to the Alleghanies and Rockies, or 
rests in tropical beauty on the bosom of old Ocean. 
The acquisition of new territory is not contrary 
to our policy in the past. It is, indeed, in perfect 
accordance with that policy. It is just what the 
nation has been doing from its earliest vears. 



THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 305 

But whether it is desirable for us to acquire more 
territory now, is not a question to be decided ex- 
clusively by our past policy, be that what it may, 
but it is to be decided by present expediency. It 
is a practical question to be determined by our in- 
terests and our duty. Let us look for a moment 
at the facts. We have just emerged from a short 
but decisive war with Spain, as a result of which 
Cuba, Porto Eico, part of the Philippine Islands and 
the Ladrone Islands are in our hands. This war was 
not entered into by the nation in any spirit of con- 
quest and expansion. It was not a war forced upon 
the people of this country by the President, by Con- 
gress, by the politicians, nor by political parties. 
In the face of the most trying and irritating events, 
well fitted to stir the anger of the nation, the Presi- 
ident exhibited a marvelous moderation and self- 
control, and, while firmly demanding, in as con- 
ciliatory a spirit as possible, that the cruelties in 
Cuba should cease, he did not proclaim hostilities 
until he was unmistakably required to do so by the 
almost unanimous voice of the American people. 
No other war ever entered into by the country was 
sustained with such unanimity of popular senti- 
ment as was the war with Spain. In the prosecu- 
tion of the war and in the diplomatic proceedings 
of a later date, the President carefully noted the 
drift of public opinion and in all respects as care- 
fully followed the manifest wishes of the people. 
No president, not even the revered Abraham Lincoln, 
ever kept himself in time of war, in closer touch with 
the American people, or more scrupulously pursued 
the policy which they desired, and the American 
people are satisfied with what has been accomplished. 



366 THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 

There are heroes of the war, not a few, whose achieve- 
ments will be remembered in all coming time with 
admiration and with pride, but it is not too much 
to say, it is only just to say, that the central figure 
in the conflict, by reason of his comprehensive grasp 
of the whole situation, his unhesitating assumption 
of responsibility, and his wise and prompt direction 
of the forces on land and water alike, securing the 
greatest results in the briefest possible time, the real 
hero of the war, is undoubtedly the president of the 
republic. 

The American people demanded the war with 
Spain in the interest of humanity. No holier war 
was ever waged. And even now, when the victory 
is ours, the American people have not been carried 
away by an insane desire for territorial expansion; 
they do not favor what some gentlemen are pleased 
to call a policy of imperialism. But they are not 
insensible to existing conditions, and not unprepared 
to act as the conditions may require. If Cuba is 
capable of self-government, and will maintain free- 
dom and justice, our people will hail free Cuba with 
universal acclamation and will not regret a dollar 
of the millions spent for Cuban independence. In 
this hour of triumph the attitude of the American 
people, calmly waiting for the terms of peace, to 
ascertain what shall be the final disposition of the 
territory, which, as a result of the war waged un- 
selfishly for humanity, has fallen into our hands, 
is simply sublime. There is no unrest and no dis- 
trust. With perfect confidence in the sagacity and 
patriotism of the President, the nation waits in si- 
lence and in hope, and "not a wave of trouble rolls 
across its peaceful breast," despite all the wails of 



THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 3G7 

those gentlemen who, mistaking the past policy of 
the country, desire it to remain forever one and un- 
changeable; who are inexpressibly grieved because 
the giant is no longer content with the nursery 
rhymes which were sung around his cradle, but in- 
sists on singing the Battle Hymn of the Eepublic : 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; 

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 

While God is marching on. 

We all hope that our country in the future will 
be the home of liberty, of justice, and of humanity. 
And it is not a bad way to promote these at home, 
to do something for liberty and justice and humanity 
in the islands of the ocean. The man who thinks 
only of himself grows narrow and mean, and so does 
the nation. We have given of our bounty to the weak 
and the suffering, and even while Ave were giving, 
the blessing came upon lis in fullest measure; the 
hearts of our ow T n people were knit together again 
in love, and sectional feeling and animosity passed 
away. The bitterness of party spirit and the shib- 
boleths of party hate disappeared; the sympathy and 
good will of the mother country demanded the neu- 
trality of Europe, and in turn won for herself from 
this country a love stronger and heartier than was 
ever before felt by this people for Great Britain 
since the Pilgrims left her shores. We want no 
formal alliance even with England, but henceforth 
in the contests which endanger the liberty or the 
rights of men, these two countries will stand together, 
and the crowned heads that are still speculating on 
the necessity of maintaining the balance of power, 



368 THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 

and using Turkey as a weight in the scales, must 
take notice that the United States is henceforth to 
be reckoned as one of the powers of the world whose 
wishes are not to be entirely disregarded by the con- 
tinent of Europe. 

The Nicaragua-Panama canal should unquestion- 
ably be built, either by a private company or by the 
nation, but not by any union of the two, the nation 
furnishing the money and the company the expe- 
rience, and in the end the company having the money 
and the nation the experience. There has been too 
much of that; let us have no more of it, but let the 
canal be built, our treaty obligations not being over- 
looked. Its influence on our future prosperity will 
be beyond calculation, and if our dreams of com- 
mercial greatness in the East are ever realized, this 
canal will be doubly important. Let it be built, 
honestly built, for the good of mankind, and it will 
add largely to American prosperity. 

I am glad that Hawaii is ours. It ought to be. 
I am glad that there is hope that Porto Rico will 
be ours, the people not being unwilling. I do not 
desire Cuba, but I would take care of Cuba or make 
her take care of herself. I do not want the Philippine 
Archipelago, but I would hold Manila certainly and 
the island of Luzon, and I think I would let the 
rest of the archipelago try its hand at self-govern- 
ment. I am unwilling to have the flower of our 
youth spend their lives or lose their lives in per- 
forming police duty among a half-civilized people. 
Relieved of Spanish taxation and repression, allowed 
to use their money for their own improvement, stimu- 
lated by the sight of American liberty, American 
schools, and American justice, I believe the people 



THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 369 

of the archipelago might be safely left to work out 
their own salvation, and if they can, it is a great 
deal better that they should than that we should 
do it for them. 

Having thus very briefly disposed of the various 
territories which the nation does not quite know what 
to do with, and having undoubtedly relieved the mind 
of the President on this matter, I close with the 
simple hope that, in the future, our people may be 
industrious, prosperous, virtuous, and happy; that 
our rulers may be men who fear God and work 
righteousness; that our nation by its example of 
liberty and justice for all, may be the means of 
overthrowing tyranny and oppression everywhere, 
and of lifting up and comforting the down-trodden, 
and the oppressed, and that by a wise employment 
of the industrial forces at home, it may secure the 
highest utility of capital, and the most abundant 
reward of labor for all the people of our country. 



AMERICAN PROGRESS* 

It is both natural and wise for a people to think 
well of a country in which they live, whether it be 
theirs by birth or adoption. "Our nation," as Abra- 
ham Lincoln so felicitously said at Gettysburg, was 
"conceived in liberty and dedicated to the propo- 
sition that all men are created equal;" our gov- 
ernment is "government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people," and surely no people on the 
face of the earth, looking back and noting the bless- 
ings which have come to them, have greater reason 
than we have to say with the Psalmist: "God hath 
not dealt so with any nation." The western hemi- 
sphere seems to have been kept hid from the rest 
of the world for so many centuries, in order that it 
might, at just the right time, become the home of 
just the right people, to lay the foundations of in- 
stitutions most fitted to promote the development 
and happiness of mankind. 

The right time came when Europe awoke from 
its intellectual and religious slumbers. America was 
discovered, but even then the right people were not 
ready for its settlement. The right people came when, 
just before the birth of Milton, the English estab- 
lished a colony in Virginia; when, a few years later, 

*Delivered at the commencement of the University of Wisconsin, 
June 21st, 1893. 



372 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Kock; and when, 
in a comparatively short time, the best blood of half 
a dozen countries in Europe contributed to the set- 
tlement of various colonies. 

The opening of a new hemisphere to the Old 
World was as if God were giving mankind another 
new testament, under which the human race, that 
had so signally failed in the past, under the inspira- 
tion alike of Sinai and Calvary, might begin once 
more the race life, under new conditions, in a land 
free from guilt, from historic wrongs, and from ir- 
remediable injustice, a land in which the homeless 
might find a home, and in which the persecuted might 
find rest. 

It was as if God had given to humanity in its 
maturity the privilege of wiping out from its own 
memory and from the pages of the recording angel 
the sins and mistakes of all its earlier years, and 
of beginning on a clean page to write the future 
history of the race. And now for nearly 300 years 
our fathers or we ourselves have been writing that 
history. Whatever its record of good or evil, it is 
altogether too large for us to inspect with any mi- 
nuteness to-day. We know that there are pages black 
with injustice, blotted and stained with the record 
of a great nation's shame, only partly obliterated 
by its repentant tears and the kindly effacing hand 
of time. And we know, too, that there are pages 
glowing with deeds of justice, charity, and love, ra- 
diant with a patriotism as sweet and pure as angelic 
faces. If we are to deal with life in this country, 
we must know the past of our country. It is cer- 
tainly most fitting that in this historic year, when 
the nations of the world have gathered in the heart 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 373 

of our country to study with us the triumphs of 
civilization which every land can display, we should 
feel a just pride in our achievements, and be inspired 
by the mighty contrasts between the present and the 
past. 

But we shall fail most lamentably of learning 
the lesson of the hour and of the age, if our hearts 
are not filled with a new sense of gratitude for the 
great blessings which God has bestowed upon us, 
if we are not more than ever impressed with our 
grand opportunities, and our solemn responsibilities 
and duties. The story of the life of the first colo- 
nists and of the people in the early years of our coun- 
try, is interesting, inspiring, and yet pathetic. What 
a bare life was theirs compared with ours! How 
little of comfort, of opportunities, of personal de- 
velopment, there was for most people, previous to 
the present century. It was a struggle for existence, 
such as ought to make the sleek pessimists of litera- 
ture in our day blush, when they talk about life now 
being a struggle for existence. Only 105 years of 
national life have gone by and we are a nation of 
nearly 65,000,000 of people. The descendants of the 
men and women of the Eevolution are here, the race 
from which they sprang no longer distinguishable, 
unless it were English. But how many others are 
here, the income of the last fifty years. Wave after 
wave of immigration has rolled in upon our shores, 
from the time of Ireland's famine to the last dis- 
covery of America, in recent years, by the Italians. 
Germans are here by the millions, Scandinavians by 
the hundred thousands, French, Scotch, Welsh, Poles, 
Bohemians; some at least of almost every civilized 
nation under heaven, and thousands upon thousands 



374 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

of most of these races. Proud Boston, that thinks 
herself the quintessence of American culture, is 
largely a city of foreigners. But it is none the less 
American; its occasional Irish mayor answering 
the purpose just as well as if he had in his veins 
the blood of all the Mathers; and New York, the 
commercial emporium of America, is controlled by 
citizens of foreign birth. If there are any remnants of 
old Dutch settlers left, the Stuyvesants, Van Twillers, 
Van Curlets, Van Kensselaers, Hardebrecks, and 
Ten Broecks, they do not appear outside of the social 
and financial circles, and are apparently content to 
leave the higher and more difficult matters of gov- 
ernment to the more vigorous races that have but 
recently invaded the city; and the sons of New Eng- 
land, to whom New York is so largely indebted 
for the growth of business and the piling up of wealth, 
are too busy making money to attend to the gov- 
ernment of the city, and, like their Dutch neighbors, 
are apparently willing to leave politics and the man- 
agement of municipal affairs to whatever race may 
have arrived in the country last. Yet New York is 
a delightful American city, with no suggestion of any 
foreign city except the presence of foreigners in large 
numbers, but of foreigners who also keep step to 
American music. 

More striking still is Chicago, that mighty city 
of the present, and destined, perhaps, to be the great- 
est city on the globe, if its corporate limits can be 
adequately extended. It is, it has been for years, 
a museum of nations. In one quarter, you are not 
merely among Bohemians; you are in Bohemia; in 
another, you are in Poland; in another, in Germany. 

The language in these quarters is almost exclu- 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 375 

sively that of the nation from which the entire popu- 
lation came. It is here no process of gradual mi- 
gration and progressive assimilation. It has been 
rather the migration of nations. Chicago has been 
taken possession of by these various nationalities 
as completely, if you will pardon a slight rhetorical 
exaggeration, as the land of Canaan was by the chil- 
dren of Israel; and what few natives there are in 
Chicago, when it comes to an election, are as pow- 
erless as the Canaanites in Jerusalem. 

I speak of these things, not by way of criticism 
or fault-finding; for I believe that the outcome is 
to be a greater republic and a nobler people than 
would have been possible under less trying conditions. 
I speak of these simply as facts to illustrate the 
great difficulties under which our country has la- 
bored for the last half century, not merely in carry- 
ing forward its unprecedented development under the 
ordinary conditions of natural growth, but in uni- 
fying, assimilating, and Americanizing the millions 
and tens of millions of immigrants, differing in hab- 
its, customs, language, and modes of thinking from 
the natives of the country and differing hardly less 
among themselves. 

It would be glory enough to our country, if, under 
these trying conditions, with this ever-increasing in- 
flux of millions of all nations and tongues under 
heaven, of all degrees of culture, of all kinds of be- 
liefs, it had merely held its own in all but material 
development. But when it is seen, as it easily may 
be, that the nation, in spite of all these difficulties, 
has made substantial progress in the last fifty years, 
in the development of both character and culture, the 
spectacle is simply sublime. I present it to you to-day, 

-25 



376 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

because I have a very genuine contempt for a class 
of men who are forever proclaiming the failure of 
Christianity, or the failure of education, or the fail- 
ure of the human mind, or the failure of God, because 
everything is not yet perfect. 

The progress made by our country in material 
development could not, perhaps, be better shown 
than it is in the Great Exposition at Chicago. Agri- 
culture, the mechanic arts, the means of transpor- 
tation, horticulture, machinery, invention, electricity, 
and the fine arts are there exhibited in such a way 
as to show at once our present attainment and the 
history of our progress through the past years. The 
record ought to satisfy us, for it shows more prog- 
ress in everything, except the fine arts, during the 
present century, than in all preceding time. And 
as a most blessed incident of this material develop- 
ment, no reasonable man can doubt that the rewards 
of labor have been greatly increased, both wages 
and the purchasing power of a given sum having been 
augmented, so that the outcome is greater general 
comfort than either this nation or any other has 
ever known before. 

And the conditions of our country, to which I have 
already referred, have not been unfavorable for this 
material development. To it the immigration has 
largely contributed. A continent was to be subdued, 
and an army of workers came and subdued it. A 
universal desire for a better condition and greater 
comfort has made all the people eager to engage 
in enterprises which promised success ; and in all mat- 
ters pertaining to invention, production, and trans- 
portation, there has been very little diversity of feel- 
ing and interest among our people, except as to the 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 377 

ever-recurring question: What share of the product 
labor shall have as its own, and what share, capital. 
There has been plenty to do; plenty of workers; and 
naturally the production has been great. The result 
has been in the highest degree satisfactory; but, 
under the circumstances, not at all surprising. 

As respects our progress in character, it may be 
said that we do not know much more about God, 
or Heaven, or the future life, than our fathers did. 
We do not keep the Sabbath with as much strictness 
as they did. The church is lenient towards amuse- 
ments that were formerly deemed irreligious. The 
church does not control individual thinking as much 
as formerly, and theological speculations are per- 
mitted in most churches without censure that in 
the olden time would have been deemed heresy worthy 
of the most severe ecclesiastical discipline. You may 
think these changes bad or good, according to your 
training. But the thoughts of the present age re- 
specting God and the Divine government, are much 
more cheerful and hopeful and worthy of our Father 
in Heaven than were the thoughts of the church a 
century ago. Ministers and other Christians do not 
drink as much rum as they did in those depressing 
days. The Sabbath is used for the entertainment and 
instruction of millions of delighted children, instead 
of being made a day of peculiar discomfort by the 
studied repression of all the natural impulses and 
desires without the expression of anything natural 
whatever. The religion of the day is built less on 
Moses, and the imprecatory Psalms, and Isaiah, and 
Jeremiah, and possibly Paul, and a good deal more 
on Jesus Christ. If it does not keep Christians as 
much as formerly from mixing with the world, it 



378 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

enables them to do a great deal more than formerly 
to make the world better. If piety consists in per- 
petual introspection and a daily solemn balancing 
of accounts to see whether we are going to Heaven 
or to Hell, with the presumption in favor of the lat- 
ter as becomes the truly humble, undoubtedly there 
is very much less of it than there formerly was; but, 
if piety means the possession of the spirit of Christ, 
the unselfish out-going of the soul towards others 
for their good, charity, philanthropy, love to God and 
love to men — as I think it does — then no other age 
has had as much piety in it as the present. I do 
not mean that the men of former times were less 
heroic in their devotion or less well-meaning in their 
service; I do mean that we have found a better way, 
even as Jesus of Nazareth pointed out a better way 
than that of Moses. 

There are in our country various religious de- 
nominations, which in other times and places have 
been state churches. These have worked here, side 
by side, under perfect equality so far as the state is 
concerned, and it has been very much to the advan- 
tage of all. Every one of these churches that have 
had in past times recognition as state churches, the 
Roman Catholic in many countries, the Protestant 
Episcopal in England, the Presbyterian in Scotland, 
the Lutheran in Scandinavia and Germany, and the 
Congregational in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 
every one of these has attained a better character, 
has done better work, has shown more of the Chris- 
tian spirit, is more clearly in charity with others than 
when it was recognized as a state church. "My king- 
dom," said Jesus, "is not of this world." 

The more the church lets go the weapons of tern- 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 379 

poral power, and trusts exclusively to spiritual forces, 
operating through service done in His name, the bet- 
ter for the church and the better for the world. 

We still hear occasionally the roar of theological 
rage; prejudice, bigotry, the substitution of a creed 
for a life as the essential thing, the magnifying of 
unimportant differences and the belittling of the 
great things of character, all these things are seen 
or heard still to some extent, but in a very trifling 
degree compared with fifty years ago. No essential 
principle of belief has been lost. It may have been 
modified in its statement. And best of all, there 
has come a genuine respect with kindly feeling among 
the different bodies of Christian people, so that they 
can rejoice even in all the good things that come 
to their neighbors, and can mourn over their mis- 
fortunes. There is a good deal more of Christ in 
this spirit than in the old one. 

Nearly twenty millions of people in this country 
are professedly Christians, while a much larger num- 
ber are in full sympathy with Christianity, and doubt- 
less many of these are as good Christians as most 
of the others. I do not know how we are to judge 
of the spiritual progress of our country and of its 
growth in character except by the spirit and life 
of the people. If the spirit of love, which was most 
strikingly characteristic of the Master, is not more 
strikingly characteristic of us as a people than it was 
of any people before, I am not able to read aright the 
motives which influence men in their acts. The time 
has been when stranger and enemy were synonymous ; 
when fidelity to God was best shown by violence to 
those who did not agree with the current opinion; 
when in the reign of one sovereign, as of Henry VIII, 



380 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

72,000 persons suffered death by the hand of the exe- 
cutioner so seemingly austere was public virtue ; when 
in good New England, severe judgments and rigid, 
unloving lives passed for the highest samples of piety. 
Our age seems to me, with all its faults, to have caught 
more of the spirit of Jesus and of his meaning when 
he said, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these, 
ye did it unto to me," and to be doing more for 
men, women, and children in His name than any 
age before. At least I know that I would rather live 
with the people of to-day, of whatever name or creed^ 
than with those of any former age, for life now is 
sweeter and more full of hope and peace than ever be- 
fore. 

Our country has paid special attention to edu- 
cation, and nowhere is education for all more possible 
than here. The range, too, of education has been 
greatly extended beyond what it was fifty years ago. 
History, that was hardly taught at all and certainly 
not in any scientific way, has become a most promi- 
nent part of the curriculum. New sciences have mul- 
tiplied, old sciences have had a new development, and 
the laboratories with their equipment have made 
progress possible that formerly was not dreamed of. 
The course of study from the kindergarten to the uni- 
versity has been greatly enriched — in what manner I 
need not stop to specify in the presence of a univer- 
sity audience. But after all that has been done we 
are still told, not indeed that our free education is an 
absolute failure, but that it is a failure so far at least 
that it has not accomplished many things which might 
reasonably have been expected. 

The Forum, a few months ago, contained an ar- 
ticle by a well-known eastern educator, in which it 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 381 

was attempted to show "wherein popular education 
has failed," and if one must believe the indictment 
which was there drawn and must trust for relief to 
the astonishingly inadequate remedies which were 
there proposed, one might w r ell despair of the repub- 
lic. The indictment, not seemingly expressing the 
sentiment of the writer in the Forum in all respects, 
but grouping together the facts as they appear to 
various critics, is in substance as follows : "In spite 
of all efforts to make education universal, all classes 
complain more than ever before of the condition of 
society. Education has not promoted general con- 
tentment, and therefore has not promoted general 
happiness. There is no increase of genuine reason- 
ableness in thought and action in the various classes 
of society. Everybody's learning to read has made 
bad books profitable. Quacks and imposters thrive. 
Popular delusions on all subjects, religion, politics, 
medicine, are common. Astrologers flourish more 
than ever ; popular folly shows itself in flat money, in 
the Granger legislation of the '70s, in the buying 
and storing of silver, and in proposals to compel the 
government to buy agricultural products and issue 
paper money against the stock. Lynch law is still 
familiar, riots common, assassination avowed as a 
means of industrial regeneration. Even religious per- 
secution is rife. New tyrannies are constantly aris- 
ing, of which the walking delegate is a specimen. The 
methods of electioneering are without reason; voters 
are irrational, reading only one intensely partisan 
paper, and not putting proper confidence in the in- 
dependent thinker. The distinction between rich and 
poor is intensified. Machines, while they relieve 
labor, make the operative's life monotonous and nar- 



382 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

row. Wars are more destructive than ever. The coun- 
try pays twenty-seven years after the war more for 
pensions than is needed to sustain the largest army 
in Europe. iSfobody is secure in employment, because 
the rich can dismiss when they please. Only produc- 
tion is looked for, and no thought given to those fine 
human qualities which ought to be the ultimate 
product desired." 

This is indeed a formidable catalogue of evils. 
But I think very few people would ever have thought 
of arraigning our popular education as the cause. 
But the ingenious writer, to whom I have referred, 
finds, as he says, "a partial explanation of these evils 
in a certain inadequacy and misdirection in popular 
education, as generally conducted until recently." 
I am so grateful for those last two words, "until re- 
cently" ; so glad that we are not left entirely without 
hope, but may fairly expect that at the end of two gen- 
erations more these evils will all be removed by the 
sweet reasonableness of our people, attained through 
the new system of education which is now coming in, 
but to perfect which a few changes are deemed neces- 
sary. These changes, as proposed by the learned 
critic, are the following: "1st. Make the strengthen- 
ing of the reasoning power the constant object of all 
teaching. 2nd. Extend true observation studies — 
teach the natural sciences more — not in any common 
way, but by the laboratory methods, with constant 
use of the laboratory note-book. 3rd. Teach more 
history. 4th. Teach argumentative composition; and 
5th. Teach political economy and sociology, not as in- 
formation subjects, but as training or disciplinary 
subjects." That is all. "These," says the distin- 
guished writer, "are some of the measures which we 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 383 

may reasonably hope may make popular education 
in the future more successful than it has been in the 
past, in developing universal reasonableness." To 
this I answer that, if our present evils are justly 
chargeable in any considerable degree to our defective 
methods of education, the proposed changes, if 
changes they be, are utterly inadequate as a remedy. 
But in reality one very essential element of the 
problem has been overlooked. Our country is vastly 
changed in almost every respect from what it was 70 
years ago. While our education has greatly im- 
proved, the difficulties of the situation have increased 
a hundred fold. The country is different in its popu- 
lation; in its extent; in its industrial development; 
in its wealth; in its means of communication; in its 
possibilities for gigantic combinations of capital for 
the control of natural products and for the accumu- 
laton of unheard of fortunes; in its possibilities for 
gigantic combinations of labor to control or embar- 
rass capital; in its occupation so that land is becom- 
ing more difficult to obtain; in its machinery; in its 
concentration of population in cities with all the at- 
tendant possibilities of municipal corruption; in its 
public questions so far reaching and so disturbing 
that the questions of 70 years ago seem like child's 
play; in the higher and more comfortable life which 
is now universally demanded; and finally in the uni- 
versal unrest which the progress of civilization with 
its attendant possibilities has made inevitable. Is it 
any wonder, with all these changed conditions, that 
the people of this country of so many races but im- 
perfectly assimilated and millions who have never 
known our processes of education, are not able at 
once to deal with all new questions with absolute and 



384 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

unvarying reasonableness? What, we may ask, would 
be our situation to-day with our environment what it 
is, if we had not had popular education for the last 
70 years? Because education does not enable a 
people to do everything with absolute reasonableness, 
because in the clash of millions of conflicting inter- 
ests which will always be in contention among men, 
whether they are educated or not, so long as they are 
selfish, shall we proceed to talk about popular educa- 
tion as a failure, or charge all existing evils to its de- 
fects? Or shall we delude ourselves with the idea 
that all these distracting questions which agitate our 
congress, our legislatures, our city governments, our 
courts, our labor organizations, our railroad cor- 
porations, our banks, our farmers, our day laborers, 
everybody in brief, can be settled with a sweet rea- 
sonableness by the emphasizing in our schools of 
some old studies and the introduction of the labora- 
tory note-book? Will the student trained under 
these not very startling educational changes, be able 
to play the Moses to our people, and lead them out 
of the darkness of Egypt, in which we are at present 
groaning, into the Canaan flowing with milk and 
honey of sweet reasonableness on all subjects, 
where tariffs and bimetalism and trusts, and social- 
ism and crimes and anarchy, shall float away, like 
Jordan into the Dead Sea, and disappear for- 
ever? The government of this country has recently 
changed hands. Certain issues were raised in the 
presidential campaign, and apparently the de- 
cision of the nation on those issues was given in 
very emphatic terms. Yet the President with, I doubt 
not, the best intentions and the most sincere desire 
to do the right thing, hesitates to assemble Congress 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 385 

to remedy the evils which have been complained of; 
and he may well hesitate. No party can afford to 
make any mistake, not often can a party afford to 
make an experiment. Yet nobody can tell what the 
immediate effect of the legislation contemplated will 
be. How can any one tell, when there are elements in 
the problem that may change at any moment? The 
deficiency of rain fall or the excess of it in this coun- 
try or in other countries, might produce results that 
would, temporarily at least, make the proposed legis- 
lation successful or unsuccessful as the case might be. 
Nobody is absolutely sure as to what is best to be 
done, except that rather large company who know a 
great deal that isn't so. Now, a sweet reasonableness 
is, no doubt, a very fine thing. "Logic is logic," said 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, when his one horse shay 

Went to pieces all at once 

All at once and nothing first 

Just as the bubbles do when they burst 

because every part was equally strong. But nobody 
ever saw such a one horse shay, and nobody ever will 
see it. Justice is justice — and the legislator would 
be happy indeed, if he could make a tariff that would 
be equally just to everybody. But no such tariff was 
ever made or ever will be made. A hundred barking 
dogs of passion, cupidity, greed, and policy, make the 
air resound with their howls whenever their particu- 
lar interests are touched ; and one interest is so inter- 
woven with another that the disturbance of one en- 
dangers others that have not been thought of. The 
number of men who will approve a general principle 
is much larger than the number of those who will 
approve a specific law to carry out the principle. Dif- 



386 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

ferent statesmen with the same facts before them, 
reach different conclusions. 

On one side are Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Carlisle, 
and on the other Mr. Harrison and Senator Sherman. 
These men are all patriotic. They all mean well. 
They all look at the same facts, but they draw differ- 
ent conclusions. All of these men have been trained 
in argumentative composition — indeed that is the 
strong point with them. They know something about 
the natural sciences, though I fear that they have 
never used the laboratory note-book. But with the 
exception of this, they have had all the things which 
are pointed out by our learned mentor as necessary 
to produce universal reasonableness, and yet they can 
not agree. Would they agree if they had had the com- 
plete training required? Do the students of any uni- 
versity in New England even all think alike on all 
subjects? But why should they not if they have been 
properly trained? Why should they not if they have 
been properly instructed in argumentative composi- 
tion and have used the laboratory note-book? 

In such a complicated social and industrial world 
as that in which we are now living there will be 
clashing and contention and unrest just so long as 
men are selfish, no matter how excellent may be our 
system of education. If you could make men every- 
where observe the golden rule, it would do more to 
promote the contentment and happiness of the world 
than all the changes in education conceivable. Dis- 
content, without hope of anything better, is, I grant, 
the deepest misery ; but discontent with hope of some- 
thing better, is not only consistent with the highest 
earthly happiness but is usually the concomitant of 
such happiness. I do not know that contentment is 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 387 

produced by education. I do not know that it is de- 
sirable that it should be. Contentment is not the 
same as happiness. Shylock, after being robbed of 
his daughter and his ducats, after being judicially 
robbed of the rest of his property, and forced to 
accept a hated religion in place of his ancestral faith, 
is asked by the prosecutor, Portia, if he is contented, 
and he answers, "I am content." Perhaps he was, 
since he had not been robbed of his life, as it seemed 
probable at one time that he would be; but he cer- 
tainly Was not conspicuously happy. 

Paul said : "I have learned in whatsoever state I 
am therewith to be content." But he did not mean 
that he wanted to stay just where he was and be just 
what he was and nothing more. He meant simply that 
he had learned to accept without murmuring any con- 
dition in which he might be placed. But at the same 
time he had a desire for something, as he said, "far 
better." A divine unrest, the moral power which 
moves the world, promotes progress, and makes men 
"rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher 
things," moved him. He had not reached his highest 
point of progress — had not already attained or been 
made perfect. But he pressed on, pressed toward the 
goal. That is the law of spiritual progress. There 
is the same law of progress in civilization and in 
human life generally. The education which makes a 
man contented, or makes classes of people con- 
tented, or makes mankind contented, as long 
as they have not apprehended the best things, is 
in a degree, a failure. That education only is suc- 
cessful which awakens in man a noble discontent for 
the undeveloped present and an earnest longing for 
more perfect attainments. Carry the gospel to a 



388 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

savage, and the first evidence you have that it is doing 
the savage any good is an increase in his wants, a 
desire on his part to have more clothes and to be more 
decent. More and more, as he appreciates Christian- 
ity, will his desires enlarge, as new ideas of purity, 
beauty, harmony, peace, good-living enter his soul. 
If any one supposes that he can have a half -naked, 
lazy, dirty cannibal accept the gospel and remain a 
half-naked, lazy, dirty cannibal, he has a very poor 
idea of the gospel or a very exalted one of a lazy can- 
nibal. Stir the soul or the mind out of its lethargy 
and discontent is inevitable. 

When the unclean spirit goes out of a man and 
takes a walk, he does not on his return find the man 
the same as he left him. The man has been busy, 
striving after better things, and the apartments once 
occupied by the spirit are already "swept and gar- 
nished." Figurative, this, no doubt; but none the 
less real. Take a boy out of the slums of a big city. 
His knowledge is like that of an animal — a kind of 
instinct for supplying itself with food. Take him 
away from his old environment. Wash him, clothe 
him in decent apparel, stir his mind with new sights 
and new thoughts, teach him to read and write. Is 
he contented? No! Is he as contented as he was 
before you took him from the slums? No ! Why not? 
Because then he was blind and could not see the pos- 
sibilities open to men in this world. Then he had 
no hope or thought of ever living elsewhere than amid 
filth and sin. He is a great deal better off now. Yes; 
infinitely so. But now there stretch out before him 
possibilities so grand, futures so delightful, hopes 
of being and doing so much more than he is or can do 
now, that the God-given discontent with what he has 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 389 

already achieved, pushes him on and on, beyond the 
common education, beyond common success in busi- 
ness, even to the utmost that human energy can se- 
cure. And is it not well? Is it not as it should be? 

If it is general contentment you are looking for, 
a contentment that is satisfied with things as they 
are, and does not desire further advancement, do not 
look for it among a people who have known free popu- 
lar education for seventy years, for you will not find 
it. And if you are educating all classes freely in 
the hope that education will make the humble classes 
contented to stay forever where they are, contented 
that other people shall rise in power and. influence 
and comfort, while they remain in all these respects 
unchanged, you are greatly deceiving yourselves, for 
education will never make a people contented. 
Knowledge is as disturbing and. disquieting to-day 
as it was in the Garden of Eden. 

Why was it that, in the palmy days of slavery, 
the slaveholders regarded it as such an incendiary 
proceeding to teach the slaves to read? Simply be- 
cause they understood that knowledge would breed 
discontent. The spelling book among the slaves was 
as dangerous as a torch in a powder mill. 

Look at the feudal lord, perched in his castle 
on some summit, with his armed followers to guard 
him, while his serfs live in huts at the foot of the 
castled hill. These serfs work for him. They oc- 
cupy his land. They get nothing out of life except 
the means to live at a poor dying rate. Now take 
knowledge to those serfs ; teach them history, science, 
ethics, rights, and how long will they stay in their 
miserable huts, the willing servants of their feudal 
lord? How long after you have shown them a better 



390 AMERICAN PROGRESS 

life as possible for them before they will be seeking it? 
And is not that what we want? Is not that the very 
thing we ought to seek by means of education? The 
son of a barber became Lord Chancellor of England. 
A high-born acquaintance once alluded sneeringly to 
the humble origin of the Chancellor. "Yes, my father 
was a barber," replied the Chancellor, "and if your 
father had been a barber, you would have been a bar- 
ber, too." Which of these men was the better, the 
man who rose above his birthright , or the man 
who would not have arisen above it, however low it 
might have been? 

It has been the glory of our country, and I pray 
God it may never cease to be the glory of our coun- 
try, that here men may rise by merit above the 
social condition in which they are born. Our free 
public education is not intended to make grades and 
classes of society, from father to son, content with 
that station which it has pleased Providence to assign 
them. On the contrary, it is intended to quicken 
the intellect and to stir the ambition of every child 
which it reaches, so that there may be continual 
movement from one grade of society to another, per- 
petual currents purifying and energizing society, as 
the winds and the waves keep the mighty ocean for- 
ever in action, and so more equable in temperature 
and more pure. A favored class of nobility in some 
countries, who own everything, may desire a sys- 
tem of education which will make the masses forever 
contented to own nothing, and they do desire it. But 
that is not what education is for in the United States. 
It is intended not more to teach all men their rights 
than to awaken in all men a desire and a determina- 
tion to secure their rights. In this country it can 



AMERICAN PROGRESS 391 

never wrong any man to allow to all other men the 
rights which belong to them. And the people that 
are not content, because they have not attained to 
the best things possible, will be happy in this very dis- 
content, if only they are advancing towards the things 
which they desire, happy in the seeking, happy in their 
sense of progress, to be made supremely happy some- 
time and somewhere, in their perfect development. 



—26 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION * 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the State Horticul- 
tural Society: 

I have accepted your kind invitation to speak 
to you this evening, not for the purpose of delivering 
a literary address or a treatise on horticulture, but 
in order to say a few things respecting agricultural 
education, which I think it is well for the state that 
I should say and say now. 

It has been my good fortune to become reasonably 
well acquainted with your purposes and investiga- 
tions through the annual reports which you have 
published, and I come before you to-night with a 
very sincere respect for you and your work. You 
have taken hold of that department of agriculture 
which most imperatively requires special attention 
here in Minnesota, and which, more than any other, 
needs the aid of science and the teachings of ex- 
perience. You have prosecuted this work with a 
zeal worthy of all commendation, and with a meas- 
ure of success for which the entire state ought to 
be grateful. Many of the papers published in the 
record of your proceedings are worthy of careful 

*An address delivered before the State Horticultural Society in 
the Hall of the House of Representatives at St. Paul, Minnesota, 
January 19th, 1887. An attempt was making at this time to separate 
the Agricultural College from the University. 



394 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

study; and those are not wanting which show the 
writers to be as refined in taste and as sensible to 
beauty and as appreciative of the utility of beauty, 
as the most cultured literary artists. Such a paper 
is that by Mr. J. S. Harris, in the Model Farmer's 
Garden, in which occurs a description of what a 
farmer's home should be, which, if realized to any 
considerable extent, would add not a little to the 
happiness of farmers and their families. But, gen- 
tlemen, you have done much more than to publish 
excellent papers. But a few years ago it was sup- 
posed that Minnesota was too cold for the success- 
ful cultivation of fruit. But you thought otherwise. 
You experimented and persisted in your experiments 
Avhen the results were most discouraging. By your 
wise perseverance and intelligent skill you have made 
Minnesota the prize bearer of the nation for excel- 
lence of apples; you have made it almost the peer 
of any in the abundance and deliciousness of grapes; 
you have made strawberries, the most luscious of 
all small fruits, not only plenty, but of great variety 
and of the highest excellence; while every table in 
Minnesota is a debtor to you for a variety of food 
produced here at home, and most conducive to comfort 
and to health. In the prosecution of this work the 
names of Gideon, Pierce, Harris, Elliot, and others 
whom I need not mention, have become as familiar 
as household words in connection with the work of 
this society, and as benefactors of the state. 

If I can not directly participate in your coun- 
sels or assist you in your work, I can at least appreci- 
ate the value of your work. And I especially de- 
sire that, as I speak to you to-night, you shall not 
look upon me, with a kind of pity, as a mere theorist 



AGPaCULTURAL EDUCATION 395 

who knows nothing about the mysteries of practical 
agriculture. It is true that even a theorist may 
reach his conclusions from a larger induction than 
the practical man, and so the geologist may be a 
safer guide in mining than is the practical miner. 
But I am not even a theorist. My early years were 
spent on a farm, where I became familiar in a prac- 
tical way with the whole routine of a farmer's life, 
including what will some day be more important in 
Minnesota than it appears to be regarded now, ro- 
tation of crops, and the care and feeding of cattle 
for beef as well as for dairy purposes. I learned 
how to do things by doing them. I know perfectly 
well what a farmer's life is; what his work is; and 
I believe I know what his needs are so far as they 
relate to education and preparation for his work. 
This is my only justification for appearing before 
you at all. While I recognize the fact that the field 
of knowledge is too wide for any man to be familiar 
with the whole of it, and, while I appreciate the 
fact that you undoubtedly know vastly more than 
I about agriculture, I yet modestly hope to lead you 
along certain lines of thought which will pay for 
the time and attention which you may give me. I 
propose to speak upon the subject of agricultural 
education. I shall first notice very briefly the his- 
torical progress of agriculture. I shall then inquire 
what has been done for agricultural education in 
Minnesota, and finally I shall try to show what is 
needed for the future. 

If we examine carefully the history of agricul- 
ture, we shall be impressed with the very great sim- 
plicity and crudeness of the agencies employed in 
early times to aid the farmer in his work; we shall 



396 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

be astonished at the slow progress made among the 
Greeks and Komans, and in the medieval ages in 
Europe generally ; and in all the world, down even to 
a comparatively recent time; and we shall be de- 
lighted at the rapid strides which agriculture has 
made in the last half century, not only in respect 
to machines employed to save human labor, but also 
in the understanding of scientific principles and 
their application to farming. It is noticeable that 
the rapid and marked improvement in agriculture 
dates from the time when agricultural societies be- 
gan to be formed. Some of the societies formed at 
the beginning of the new era are in existence to-day, 
and it can not be doubted that the discussions and 
experiments of these societies have done much to 
bring on the age of mighty production and of sys- 
tematic economy in human muscle. At all events, 
through the publications of these societies it has 
come to pass, directly or indirectly, that the world 
has had the benefit of all the good ideas which have 
been originated by observers or thinkers. This com- 
munity of ideas, so characteristic of our age, is one 
great cause of human progress, not merely in agri- 
culture, but in all departments of knowledge. It 
is no longer one man thinking for himself alone that 
measures the progress of the race. It is rather mul- 
titudes of men thinking for humanity — all eager to 
share their thoughts and discoveries with one an- 
other, and to publish them to the world. Under 
this stimulus grains have been improved in quality 
and vastly increased in quantity; fruits have been 
multiplied in varieties, and made better in flavor; 
vegetables have been made to assume unheard of 
proportions; cattle of improved breeds have taken 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 397 

the place of the stunted and unprofitable specimens 
of former times, and the dairy has become a most 
tremendous contributor to human comfort; while 
the horse has been developed in speed and beauty 
beyond anything known to our ancestors. And still 
the work of subduing the earth, so essential to hu- 
man welfare everywhere, goes on with almost bound- 
less promise for the future. 

It would almost seem, indeed, as if the wants 
of the world would be rapidly met, and a great 
surplus of unneeded products would result from the 
vastly increased power of labor; but experience 
proves that there is no new idea of real value and 
no new force of real power for which the world 
can not make room, however well mankind may seem 
to have been provided for before. It is no longer a ques- 
tion of mere existence with the human race. It is 
a question of how much comfort, and even luxury, 
mankind can have in addition to the necessaries of 
life. We no longer think of famine as possible, since 
it has been clearly shown that there is nourishment 
enough in the bosom of mother earth to feed all her 
children for ages to come. And the increase in the 
production of food has not been the result of the 
employment of a proportionally increased number 
of laborers, but of the application of machinery to 
work instead of human muscles. Thus the labor of 
the world is not unduly expended in the direct pro- 
duction of food, but it is applied in larger and larger 
measures to the manufacture of the myriad arti- 
cles which the genius of man has invented for hu- 
man comfort and which, from being the luxuries of 
the rich, are fast becoming the necessaries of the 
poor. Whatever adds to the productive power of 



398 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

labor, adds to the sum of human comfort, and es- 
pecially increases the number of those who can have 
this comfort. We are, therefore, under the greatest 
obligations to those searchers after truth who ex- 
plore the dark places of nature's domain, and bring 
to light new forces for the service of man. 

But with the advance in agriculture and the rec- 
ognition of a scientific method in agriculture, the 
old idea that anybody can be a farmer and that as 
likely as not education will unfit a man for a farmer's 
life, has, to a considerable extent, passed away, and 
there has come instead, a demand for agricultural 
education. This demand is sensible and proper. The 
supply ought to equal the demand. And it does. 
No person who desires an agricultural education need 
go without it because it can not be had. The trouble 
thus far has been that, while a clamor is raised for 
agricultural education, the boys to be educated are 
not forthcoming, and to educate there must be per- 
sons to receive the education. Up to the present time 
the demand for agricultural education in Minnesota 
can not be said to have been very great, and I have 
no hesitation in saying that the supply has been 
largely in excess of the demand. And if, at the pres- 
ent moment, the demand seems to anybody to be 
greater than the supply, I answer, in the language 
of the market reports, that "the demand is mainly 
speculative and not for consumption." And I add, 
in the language of the Declaration of Independence, 
"to prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid 
world." 

In the first place it is to be observed that the 
Regents of the University have not been negligent in 
the matter of providing facilities for agricultural 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 399 

education. Consider for a moment what they have 
done. 

The endowment of a university in Minnesota was 
begun in 1851 by the act of Congress granting two 
townships of land for the purpose. The territorial 
legislature passed an act in 1851 for the establish- 
ment of the University. The state constitution 
adopted in 1857 confirmed the previous action and 
expressly provided for the vesting in the University 
of all lands which may hereafter be granted by Con- 
gress or other donations for university purposes. For 
reasons too well known to be repeated here, the 
University was not really organized and put into 
operation till 1869. Thus eighteen years elapsed be- 
tween the time of the first grant for the University 
by Congress and the organization of a faculty for 
university work. At first the Regents very properly 
made provision for the education that was most 
needed and demanded. Full provision was made for 
instruction in science, literature, and arts. For years 
the provision thus made was sufficient for the wants 
of the state. As schools and scholarship in the state 
improved, the work in the University was raised, 
preparatory classes were dropped, till now only one 
remains and its days are numbered. Later came the 
organization of the College of Mechanic Arts, and 
of the College of Agriculture. Up to this time the 
sons of farmers, like the sons of everybody else, had 
had free permission to enter every class room in 
the University for which they were prepared. Now 
they were permitted to have in junior and senior 
years special instruction in agriculture in addition 
to all the other privileges of the University. In other 
words, a special college of agriculture, with a two 



400 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

years' course, was established, to enter which a stu- 
dent must have pursued the college course during 
the two preceding years. 

In due time, also, the Regents, in order to fulfill 
their trust and to do all that was possible for the 
agricultural education, bought a farm near the Uni- 
versity, for the practical experimental work. When 
the present professor of agriculture came to the state, 
he found the farm unsuited to its intended use, and 
upon his recommendation the Eegents sold the farm, 
and with the proceeds of the sale purchased the pres- 
ent experimental farm, erected thereon a model house 
and barn, placed upon the farm a variety of stock, 
recreated — so to speak — the whole farm, so that at 
the present time it is a most admirable tract of 
land, a beautiful specimen of what it is possible for 
a Minnesota farm to be; without a weed in its cul- 
tivated parts, and with a rich covering of grass where 
formerly not a blade was growing. In bringing the 
farm to its present condition and present fitness for 
experimental work, and in meeting the requirements 
of the department of agriculture, the Regents have 
expended many thousands of dollars; and they have 
spent year by year far more for the department of 
agriculture than they have spent for any other de- 
partment whatever, and they have done this with 
a very sincere desire to improve agriculture and to 
benefit the farmers. 

If this liberal policy has not been appreciated, 
if students have not come to the College of Agri- 
culture, if there has been practically no demand what- 
ever for agricultural education, it is not because 
the Regents have failed in their duty, not because 
they have not made generous provision for this edu- 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 401 

cation, not because they have not been willing to do 
everything which large-minded men could do to pro- 
mote so great an interest as the agriculture of Min- 
nesota. And I wish to say here that, if the Regents 
have not accomplished directly for agriculture as 
much as might be desired, as much as they desired, 
they have at least proved themselves wise trustees 
of the property intrusted to their care ; for they have 
converted property which originally cost them only 
$8,000 into property which could easily be sold to- 
day for $250,000, while the fruit farm at Minnetonka, 
purchased for $2,000, could be sold now for $30,000. 
If anyone can show anywhere more profitable farm- 
ing than that, let us by all means know where it is. 

But the Regents have not stopped even here. In 
their zeal to meet the wants of the farmers of the 
state, they have consented to impair somewhat the 
symmetry of the University, and have opened spe- 
cially easy paths by which students can enter the 
department of agriculture, and they have done this 
by my advice. 

When I came to the University a little more than 
two years ago, I found one student registered in the 
College of Agriculture. He graduated at the end 
of the year, and the second year of my administra- 
tion opened without a single pupil in agriculture. 
You will believe me, gentlemen, when I say that I 
pondered upon the subject long and earnestly. I 
became satisfied that two things w T ere clear; first, 
that the actual demand for special education in agri- 
culture was very slight, as shown by the fact that 
in a great agricultural state with its tens of thou- 
sands of farmers, not one farmer's son appeared to 
ask for instruction in agriculture, while hundreds 



402 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

of farmers' sons and daughters came to the Uni- 
versity to ask for instruction in other things. Sec- 
ond, that the children of the state who desired edu- 
cation at all, would take the highest education that 
they could get. If, therefore, they once fitted them- 
selves in the high schools to enter the regular courses 
of the University, they would keep on as long as 
they could in the lines of their preparatory work in 
the schools, that is, in languages, mathematics, and 
mental, physical, natural, and economic science. In 
the full tide of successful and joyous scholarship, 
with its almost infinite possibilities for the future, 
very few students would ever wish to turn aside to 
study practical agriculture. Under these circum- 
stances, I thought I saw clearly that either there 
would be no students in agriculture, or some special 
inducements must be held out for persons to take 
that course. As we could not divert any of the stream 
of students pouring into the University into the Col- 
lege of Agriculture, the only thing to be done was 
to tap the stream nearer its source before the current 
set too strong in the present direction ; and this we 
did. We have opened the doors of the College of 
Agriculture to students who would not and could 
not enter the regular courses of study as heretofore 
guarded. We have provided that students may enter 
the College of Agriculture upon passing an exami- 
nation in geography, United States history, arith- 
metic, English grammar and composition — five of the 
eleven subjects required for admission to the other 
departments of the University — and, as a result, we 
have this year four regular students in agriculture, 
not one of whom could have entered under the old 
arrangement. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 403 

But for the agitation of the question of separat- 
ing the College of Agriculture from the University, 
I have good reasons for believing Ave should have 
had five times as many. So long as this agitation 
goes on it is impossible to work with the confidence 
in the future necessary for the highest success; and 
no special efforts, beyond a statement of the facts, 
have been made to secure pupils for this course the 
present year. If we are permitted to go forward with 
our experiment, I do not doubt its success. I am 
certain that our present plan of starting the agri- 
cultural department lower down in the course of 
study than heretofore is the correct one. I am 
confirmed in this by the deliberate judgment of 
William H. Brewer, professor of agriculture in Yale 
College; and I am confident that our present plan 
will commend itself thoroughly to every intelligent 
and fair-minded farmer who will examine it. Under 
this plan the studies pursued by the agricultural stu- 
dent to entitle him to graduate as a bachelor of agri- 
culture are the following: agriculture, horticulture, 
botany, chemistry, agricultural chemistry, natural 
philosophy, anatomy, physiology and hygiene, en- 
tomology, geology, mineralogy, practical mathemat- 
ics, drawing, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, sur- 
veying, shop work, history, zoology, English, political 
science, veterinary science, and rhetoric. I submit 
that the student who does good work in all these 
branches fairly earns his degree; and that the Uni- 
versity need not be ashamed to confer a degree for 
this work, nor the student be ashamed to receive 
the degree which represents this work. 

The Eegents have thus made it possible for any 
farmer's son who has a good common school educa- 



404 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

tion to enter the College of Agriculture. Besides 
this they permit him to take any studies in the other 
departments of the University for which he may be 
fitted and which he may desire to take. Is it pos- 
sible to make the situation more comfortable or more 
inviting for the farmer's boy than it is? If so, will 
you, gentlemen, please to tell me how. 

But the Begents have not stopped even here. De- 
termined, if possible, to make the farm of service in 
the way of education, they last year authorized the 
formation "of a class in practical agriculture" to 
be composed of boys who pass no examinations and 
who receive pay for the work they do. Ten boys 
were in this class last summer. It was an experiment 
to see what degree of eagerness would be shown for 
practical education so much demanded. It is plainly 
not the kind of work for the University to do, but 
the experiment has answered its purpose. Mean- 
while, to fully carry out the design of Congress in 
passing the agricultural land grant bill, the Begents 
have done all that lay in their power to perfect the 
organization and equipment of the College of Me- 
chanic Arts, all of whose privileges, instruction, and 
apparatus are at the service of the students of agri- 
culture, if desired. A visit to the new building, an 
examination of the machinery and apparatus, even 
a slight observation of the work done there, and 
an examination of the regulations for admission will 
show most clearly to any one that the Regents have 
heen most faithful to their trust and have made most 
ample provisions for the education of students in 
the department of mechanic arts, while they have 
not made it difficult for the people intended to be 
benefited to enter the institution. I can not go into 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 405 

particulars at this point as I should like to. All 
I can say now is, come and see the building and 
equipment for the College of Mechanic Arts and 
judge for yourselves. 

Finally, as the mountain would not come to Ma- 
homet and therefore Mahomet went to the mountain, 
so the Eegents determined that if the farmers' sons 
would not come to the College of Agriculture, the 
College of Agriculture, in part at least, should go 
to them. Farmers' institutes were accordingly es- 
tablished and more than thirty of them have been 
held. They have done good. But they, can be made 
much better and more helpful even than they have 
been, and, in a practical way, can accomplish more 
for farming than anything else that can be done. 
I have no doubt that they will be heartily sustained 
by the farmers of the state, and, as a result, I have 
no doubt that hundreds of farmers' sons will be in- 
duced to seek further knowledge in the College of 
Agriculture, while thousands of farmers who know 
nothing about the technicalities of science, will grasp 
the practical conclusions and apply them successfully 
to their farm work. If a farmer knows that by in- 
creasing his expenditure twenty per cent, in a cer- 
tain way he can increase the product of his farm 
fifty per cent., he can work out the problem success- 
fully, whether he knows how to analyze his soil or 
his fertilizers or not. But while great practical good 
can be done by the institutes under the direction 
of the College of Agriculture, the real work of the 
college, the education of students, must be done at 
the University. If the farmer boys will avail 
themselves of the opportunity offered and enter into 
the regular work of the College of Agriculture, I 



406 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

promise them an education that will fit them to be 
not only good farmers, but good and influential citi- 
zens of our republic. That, gentlemen, is the pres- 
ent situation so far as the College of Agriculture 
is concerned and so far as it relates to its provisions 
for agricultural education. We are making an ex- 
periment, and, if we are permitted to go on without 
disturbance, I believe the experiment will be suc- 
cessful. And if it is possible, it will save the state 
from further temptation to multiply colleges and 
unnecessarily to duplicate the agencies for education. 
It is claimed by those who insist that the Agri- 
cultural College should be separated from the Uni- 
versity, that no college of agriculture connected with 
a university has educated any considerable number 
of agricultural students, while colleges of agricul- 
ture which are separate have educated a large num- 
ber. An appeal is thus made to experience. I am 
not a little surprised that gentlemen as intelligent 
as many of those are who advance these arguments 
should be deceived by mere names. You can call a 
theological seminary an agricultural college if you 
please, but that does not make it one. You can call 
a common school, or even a high school, a college, 
but that does not make it one. You can call a high 
school or college for general education with an agri- 
cultural attachment an agricultural college, but that 
does not in any just sense make it one. Suppose, 
for example, that to-morrow the legislature of Min- 
nesota should vote to change the name of the Uni- 
versity of Minnesota and to call it the Agricultural 
College of Minnesota, what would be the result? We 
should go on with our work just as we do now. We 
should endeavor to give our students a good educa- 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 407 

tion. We should train them in the same subjects 
which we are teaching now. The larger portion of 
our students would then, as now, take the scientific 
course, and in that course they would learn those 
sciences upon a knowledge of which, in some meas- 
ure, success in agriculture depends. More than half 
of our students would thus be engaged in laying the 
foundation of a scientific knowledge of agriculture, 
just as they are doing now. The University would be 
an agricultural college — so-called — with three or four 
hundred students, but not one more student would be 
studying agriculture than are studying it now. It 
would be a successful institution and would have 
scholars and would be referred to as what a success 
a separate college of agriculture could be made, while, 
in reality, its success would not be owing in the least 
to its being an agricultural college in any just sense, 
but to its being a great deal more than an agricul- 
tural college. Its students would be there to gain 
general knowledge and not mainly to study agricul- 
ture. And I assert, without fear of successful con- 
tradiction, that wherever a so-called successful agri- 
cultural college exists in this country to-day the thing 
which attracts students to it is not the fact that it 
is agricultural, but the fact that it is a great deal 
besides that and the further fact that it is possible 
to enter this agricultural college — so-called — with 
much less preparation than would be required to en- 
ter institutions that do not call themselves agricul- 
tural.* 

Take, for example, the Iowa State Agricultural 

*This was true in 1887. It is not true in 1910. To-day the 
thing which attracts students to the Agricultural College is the fact 
that it is agricultural. 
—27 



408 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

College at Ames. Its faculty embraces professors 
in ethics, psychology, the history of civilization, Eng- 
lish, Latin, history, mathematics, political economy, 
pathology, histology, therapeutics, comparative anat- 
omy, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chem- 
istry, zoology, physics, astronomy, elocution, rhetoric, 
drawing, painting, music, besides those strictly agri- 
cultural. 

I think I am correct in saying that the annual 
expense of the college is greater than that of the 
whole university of Minnesota. And the require- 
ments for admission to the freshman class of this 
college at Ames are substantially the same as for 
our subfreshman class in the agricultural course, and 
not equal in amount to half the requirements for ad- 
mission to our subfreshman class in other depart- 
ments. In other words, a boy who could not pass 
the examinations to the upper classes of a Minne- 
sota high school can enter the freshman class of the 
Iowa Agricultural College with its twenty-seven pro- 
fessors and instructors. Is it not easy to see why 
students go to an agricultural college under such 
circumstances? It is a new process of getting a high 
education — going to college without the trouble of 
fitting for college. What is the use of cheating our- 
selves in this way by calling things by their wrong 
names? 

Then there is the Agricultural College at Brook- 
ings, Dakota. I have heard it repeatedly referred 
to as a triumphant proof that a separate agricultural 
college would succeed when one connected with a 
state university would not, because, forsooth, there 
were two hundred students at Brookings, presumably 
agricultural students, while we had next to none 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 409 

in our College of Agriculture in Minnesota. But I 
had an interview with one of the gentlemen engaged 
in managing the so-called agricultural college at 
Brookings and I received new light on the matter. 
Of the two hundred students only three or four were 
studying agriculture at all. The rest have rushed 
into Brookings as they would to any other place 
where a better school than could be found at home 
was established, and they are going to school at 
Brookings with no more special thought of agricul- 
ture than have the boys and girls of Minnesota when 
they go to a high school or a normal school, or a col- 
lege or university not agricultural. The Agricultural 
College of Mississippi, so often referred to as having 
large numbers of students, has a plenty of students 
for the same reason — the absence of other desirable 
institutions of learning. Even at Ames Agricultural 
College, I have been grossly misinformed if a large 
majority of the students do not take special pains 
to emphasize the fact that, though in an agricultural 
college, they are not agricultural students. 

Now the simple fact patent in all this is that 
just so far as an agricultural college gives a good 
education in things generally, while at the same time 
it is easy to enter because the requirements for ad- 
mission are low, it will have students. It is not in 
other words, agriculture, nor the desire to study 
agriculture, which controls the large majority of stu- 
dents who go to agricultural colleges ; it is education 
in its wide and real sense, the desire to get this edu- 
cation if possible and the feeling that if they get 
it at all they must go where they can enter. 

Now this education in its fulness, in better form 
and with more thoroughness than any agricultural 



410 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

college can possibly give it in Minnesota for years 
to come, we are actually giving all the time in the 
University. 

We offer it, including instruction in agricultural 
science, to all who are ready to receive it. Whose 
fault is it if the majority of students choose to grad- 
uate as bachelors of science with the scientific knowl- 
edge required in agriculture, and not as bachelors of 
agriculture, without the linguistic and mathemat- 
ical knowledge which all students need? Are not 
these students wise in fitting themselves first for 
influential citizenship? And what possible use can 
there be in multiplying colleges, when we already 
have all that the work to be done requires? Gen- 
tlemen, I will be perfectly plain, even at the risk 
of incurring your displeasure. There is no need of 
a distinctively agricultural education so large as to 
make work for a separate college. Strip these agri- 
cultural colleges of the subjects which every high 
school or college, not agricultural, must teach and 
does teach, and what a miserable skeleton of a cur- 
riculum or course of study you would have left!* 

One great danger, and one that, as a state, we 
ought carefully to avoid, is the unnecessary dupli- 
cation of educational institutions for the same work. 
The University and the normal schools ought not to do 
work which the high schools can do. It has been 
necessary in the past for them to do some of this 
work, but they ought to relinquish it just as fast as 
the high schools become able to do it. They are 

*This was true in 1887 when this address was given ; but agri- 
culture became a real science in the next twenty years, and now fur- 
nishes material for study through an entire college course, if one desires 
to stud}' agricultural sciences exclusively. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 411 

moving now in the right direction, and soon, it is 
to be hoped that the University will do only proper 
college work, and the normal schools will be largely 
relieved of grammar school work, and will do their 
proper work more exclusively — the fitting of scholars 
to teach. So, to maintain two universities or colleges, 
having essentially the same course of disciplinary 
studies, and differing only in that one has a special 
trend towards agriculture, is a waste of the public 
revenue, and ought not to be thought of. And I 
go further than this. If we are to have a university 
worthy of the state, we must make it the seat of all 
the higher learning fostered and maintained by the 
state. If a school of mining and metallurgy is needed, 
it should be at the University. So of every other 
special school in the interest of the higher education. 
For all these the library of the University, like the 
heart in the human body, can serve to send life to 
every part. Laboratories, collections of specimens, 
museums, all can be made serviceable without ad- 
ditional expense, as could not be the case if a school 
of mining is to be in one place, a school of botany in 
another, and so on. It is by concentration at one 
point, of the educational forces and material, and 
not by separation and a weak duplication of forces, 
that great universities are built up. Surely we are 
in sufficient peril from the multiplication of colleges 
here, without the state adding to our peril by adopt- 
ing a policy of division and weakness. 

The one science which, more than all others, is 
especially serviceable to agriculture is agricultural 
chemistry, using this term in its widest sense, as 
embracing the whole science of vegetable and animal 
production. As the object of agriculture is to "raise 



412 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

from the soil as large a quantity as possible of use- 
ful vegetable products, or indirectly, of animal prod- 
ucts," it is very evident that the farmer who does 
anything more than in a blind way to trust to nature 
for his crops, must understand the composition of 
plants, of animals, and of soils. True, very many 
men without scientific knowledge succeed as farmers, 
because by experience and observation, their own or 
other people's, they have reached substantially the 
same conclusions as those reached by science. But 
if boys are to be taught how to become good farmers, 
— better farmers than their fathers, — it must be by 
the scientific training, and not merely by experience. 
Now for this scientific training in agricultural chem- 
istry, the most important, the all-important scientific 
subject, what need of a separate college with its new 
buildings, new laboratories, new library, new appara- 
tus and material, and new professors, when now, a& 
things are, without a dollar's additional expense, the 
whole science of agricultural chemistry can be taught 
in our present laboratories, and taught, too, under 
the direction of a professor as accomplished as he is 
modest, a graduate of Harvard University, and a stu- 
dent in both England and Germany; when, too, a 
practical application of the principles of science can 
be made on the university farm, especially selected on 
account of its admirably diversified soil. 

It is not because I happen to be president of the 
University that I oppose the establishment of a sepa- 
rate College of Agriculture. The separation of the 
College of Agriculture from the University would not 
impair the usefulness of the University in other di- 
rections, unless, indeed, the state, burdened with the 
support of two institutions, should withdraw its sup- 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 413 

port from the University and thus stop it in its career 
of progress upon which it has fairly entered and to 
which it challenges attention. I do not understand 
that the most earnest advocate of separation desires 
to impair the power and usefulness of the University. 
But I oppose the establishment of a separate college 
of agriculture, as a citizen of the state. I oppose it 
because it will involve a needless expenditure of 
money to establish it, and a much larger expenditure 
of money to carry it on every year than will be re- 
quired for doing the same work in the University al- 
ready established. I oppose it because it involves 
heavier taxes without corresponding benefits. I op- 
pose it because it is unnecessary and, if established, 
will never accomplish what its supporters hope. I 
oppose it finally because we are in the midst of an 
experiment with the College of Agriculture and it 
remains to be seen whether or not we can meet both 
the wants and the demands of the farmers. I have 
only to add that whenever it shall be proved that 
some other arrangement than the present will be 
more beneficial, I for one shall heartily welcome the 
new arrangement. 

It is a noticeable fact that, in one particular, 
farmers are unlike the persons engaged in most other 
occupations. While we find trades unions of every 
kind carefully guarding against an over-supply of 
laborers in their particular departments and so 
against too many apprentices learning the trade, 
farmers, on the other hand, seem to be anxious to 
swell the numbers in their own ranks and to be fear- 
ful not that too many boys will become farmers but 
that too few will do so. They seem to be annoyed that 
any other occupations than farming should prove 



4U AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

attractive to farmers' boys. I do not quite under- 
stand the reason of this. It seems to be more a mat- 
ter of sensitive pride in their own occupation than 
the result of any broad views of utility or of political 
economy. But be that as it may, I shall regard it as 
a sad day for the country when the ranks of the pro- 
fessions and of trade and of manufacturing and of 
banking can no longer be recruited from the sturdy 
and energetic and honest sons of farmers in the 
country. The best blood in all lines of activities in 
our large cities has come from the country and from 
the homes of farmers. Long may it be so; and far 
distant be the day when through any compulsion, so- 
cial or physical, esoteric or exoteric, the sons of farm- 
ers shall be shut up to an education purely agricul- 
tural, and be forced, against their own taste and 
inclination, to follow the occupation of their fathers. 
As the mingling of nationalities and creeds and pur- 
poses and tastes helps the process of assimilation in 
our national life, so the mixing of families in different 
pursuits keeps all out of a rut, and adds to the life 
and activity of the whole. When, then, farmers com- 
plain that so many farmers' sons go into other pur- 
suits than farming, they complain of what is for the 
best good of all concerned. What we need to look out 
for is not lest farmers' sons should go into other pro- 
fessions, but lest farmers, whether the sons of farm- 
ers or not, should be uneducated and unfit for their 
work. And in this view of the case, so long as the 
sons of farmers can receive the benefits of the educa- 
tion in the state provided for the sons of all other 
classes of people, and can receive special agricultural 
education besides, if they desire it, I see no reason 
for sensitiveness on the part of farmers because they 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 415 

have not a separate college provided for the educa- 
tion of their sons, isolated and segregated from the 
rest of the people of the state. Such isolation, such 
education of a class of people apart from others is 
undesirable and would be unhappy in its results even 
to those for whose benefit it is sought. 

I know that the problem of agricultural educa- 
tion is one of the most difficult of all educational 
problems, because back of it is a host of people who 
do not expect to go to the college for an education, 
and yet insist that in some way the college shall bene- 
fit them, help them to do better work and to get larger 
returns. How the wishes of this large class can be 
met, except by the publication of the results of ex- 
periments, by the holding of farmers' institutes in 
all parts of the state, and by the education of stu- 
dents who, as practical farmers, shall be examples of 
skilled workers in agriculture, I do not at present see. 
If there be other practicable methods, I am not un- 
willing to recognize them, for no one, I am sure> can 
more heartily desire to do all in his power to promote 
the interests of agriculture and of the farmers of Min- 
nesota than I. 

Gentlemen, we must have certainty and stability 
in counsels in order to insure the successful progress 
of educational work. We can not plan wisely and 
put our plans into execution energetically, if it is to 
be a matter of uncertainty every time the legislature 
meets whether we are to continue in existence as a 
University or are to be mutilated and shorn of some 
of our departments. We are doing well at present, 
but we can not rest on what we have done; we can 
not be content with what we are doing, without rapid- 
ly falling behind our sister states. The noble science 



416 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

hall, just built by Kansas ; the f 200,000 appropriated 
by the last legislature of Wisconsin for a fire-proof 
building to replace the science hall consumed by fire ; 
the liberal appropriation of Nebraska for the depart- 
ment of botany, as well as for others; the steady on- 
ward march of Michigan's great university, all warn 
us that a liberal policy towards the University of 
Minnesota is necessary if we are to maintain the 
honorable reputation we have won, or are to keep 
pace with the education of our neighbors. 

The state of Minnesota has many things of which 
she may justly be proud. Her territory is a royal 
domain of magnificent proportions. Her soil is of 
surprising fertility ; her climate is most invigorating. 
Her people are enterprising, enthusiastic, united. Her 
rapid progress in material development, in popula- 
tion, in wealth commands the attention, the admira- 
tion, the wonder of the whole country. Beyond her is 
a territory stretching from the Mississippi to the 
Pacific, the future home of millions, whose wealth 
will pour itself an endless flood into her borders. 
The state, so great in material resources, is hardly 
less great in her liberal provision for education. She 
ought to feel pride in her highest institution, her 
university. What, then, shall the University of Min- 
nesota be to the state of Minnesota? Shall it be a 
real university, or shall it be dismembered and divid- 
ed, one part here and another there? Shall it be 
a university or a confederacy of high schools? Shall 
it be to Minnesota what Harvard University has been 
to Massachusetts, Yale to Connecticut, and Princeton 
to New Jersey, the university of the state and thus 
of national reputation, or shall it be one of the uni- 
versities of Minnesota and so unknown beyond the 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 41T 

state? It is not the university of the regents who 
govern it, nor of the faculty who teach in it. It is 
the university of the state of Minnesota. To the 
state of Minnesota, therefore, I look with confidence 
for such wise and liberal action as shall preserve 
the University from mutilation, shall enable it to keep 
abreast of the age in its learning and teaching, and 
shall make it an institution where all sound learning 
may be gained, where the rich and the poor may 
meet together on equal terms and may secure an 
education good enough for the highest while not too 
good for the lowest. And for the accomplishment 
of this I appeal to you, gentlemen, as intelligent mem- 
bers of the most powerful body of workers in the 
commonwealth, to give it your hearty and effective 
support. 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE * 

The Agricultural Fair of Minnesota which opens 
to-day is without doubt the most notable agricultural 
fair held anywhere in the country. In the variety 
and excellence of its exhibits and in the number of 
people who visit it, this Fair has no equal. To visit 
the Fair is at once a pleasant recreation and a means 
of education, not only for the farmers, but for all 
citizens who are interested in the welfare of the 
state. The prosperity of Minnesota is dependent in 
so large a degree upon its agriculture that no one, 
whatever may be his occupation, can afford to be in- 
different to the success of this great industry. And 
it is for this reason that the Fair is annually visited 
by so many thousands who are not engaged in farm- 
ing. The Fair has an ideal location between the Twin 
Cities and in close proximity to the Experiment Sta- 
tion and the agricultural department of the Univer- 
sity. Ample provision can be made by the cities for 
the entertainment and comfort of visitors however 
numerous, and opportunity is afforded alike to see 
what the farmers of the state are doing as shown by 
the wonderful display of farm products both vege- 
table and animal, and to become familiar with the 
equipment of the Experiment Station and the meth- 

*Delivered at the Minnesota State Agricultural Fair, September 
2nd, 1907. 



420 ADDRESS. ON AGRICULTURE 

ods of investigation and experiment there pursued. 
The great variety of farm products on exhibition of 
a, very superior character is a just occasion for pride 
not only to the farmers but to all the people of Min- 
nesota. And the not inconsiderable influence which 
the work of the Experiment Station has had in 
placing the farming of the state upon a scientific 
oasis and making i>ossible such a display as we see 
around us, is a tribute both to the wisdom of the na- 
tional government in its liberal appropriations for 
the establishment and support of Experiment Sta- 
tions and to the ability and zeal of the officers of the 
station through which knowledge of the most val- 
uable character has been disseminated in all parts of 
the state. The willingness shown by the farmers to 
follow the methods pointed out by the scientists of 
the Experiment Station as wise, is a matter for hearty 
congratulation and has much to do with the enor- 
mously increased wealth and production of Minne- 
sota in the last few years. 

The prosperity of a nation depends upon two 
things: the character of its people and the produc- 
tive industry of its people. A people of high char- 
acter will cherish high ideals and will make laws 
that shall operate impartially in the interest of all. 
If to this be added high productive industry, it means 
a general dissemination of wealth with comfort and 
possible happiness for all. Poverty, vagrancy, hun- 
ger are all unnecessary among such a people and, 
if found at all, they will be justly attributable, not 
to the laws and not to the conditions either social 
or economic, but to the negligence, idleness, or 
waste of those who suffer these things. Of course men 
who enter into business for themselves take risks and 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 421 

inay be unfortunate and fail, and, as a consequence, 
may suffer much inconvenience and experience much 
unhappiness. Neither high character nor general 
prosperity can insure success in business to any man 
who has not the qualifications necessary for con- 
ducting the business. And as a fact we are told that 
a very large percentage of those who engage in busi- 
ness do fail; the lesson of which is that every man 
should qualify himself for the business which he 
undertakes. This is no less true of the farmer than 
of the man of any other occupation. Fortunately 
much of our land is rich and the most unintelligent 
farmer who is not sparing of his labor, can hardly 
fail to derive at least a comfortable living from moth- 
er earth. But his more intelligent neighbor, by his 
superior knowledge of soils and their adaptation to 
various crops, may harvest wealth from land no rich- 
er than the other's which produces a bare living. 

This is an immense country. It has taken nearly 
three centuries to bring it to its present measure of 
cultivation. Millions of immigrants have come to 
secure cheap lands, and it has been possible to be 
fairly comfortable without careful and scientific 
farming. But the day when this is possible is fast 
passing away. The public lands are rapidly passing 
into the hands of individual owners. The rich lands 
of the West for which so many farmers have aban- 
doned less productive farms in New England and 
New York, are not now to be had for the asking as 
they once were ; and it is now a live question in New 
England and especially in New York, how the aban- 
doned farms can be reclaimed and made to add their 
just share to the production of the country. This 
can only be accomplished by scientific farming and 



422 ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 

more and more the demand for this kind of farming 
must come in every part of the country. As popula- 
tion multiplies — and ours is multiplying at almost an 
alarming rate — and as public lands disappear 
from the market, the struggle for existence will grow 
more strenuous, and the only hope for the coming 
generations lies in the possibility of making the 
land yield two or three times what it does now. To 
bring about such a possibility will require all the 
aid that science can render to progressive farmers 
who are ready to accept new discoveries and to carry 
on their farming as the latest principles of science 
shall direct. Very striking examples of what science 
has already done to increase and improve production 
might be drawn from the departments of general 
agriculture and horticulture. But I think the most 
convincing of all are furnished by the dairy depart- 
ment. There has been such improvement in the last 
fifteen years in the selection and feeding of cattle and 
in the various processes for making butter as amounts 
to a revolution. When I came to Minnesota in 1884 
it was hard to get good butter. Bad butter, very bad 
butter was common enough. To-day it is easy to 
get all the good butter you want Indeed, if there 
is any bad butter in Minnesota, I do not know where 
it comes from. I have not seen any for several years. 
When I was a boy on the farm, a cow was a cow ; no 
attention was paid to the breed. Indeed there was no 
breed. Cows were just cows. They were pastured 
in summer and fed on hay in winter. Nobody had 
any ideas about the relation of food to milk. Cows 
were fed to keep them in comfortable condition and 
they gave what milk they chose to. Nobody knew 
anything about relative amounts of butter-fat in the 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 423 

milk or of protein in the feed. Some cows were 
profitable and some unprofitable, but, as the milk of 
all of them went into one receptacle, no special notice 
of the difference was taken. And if the heifers raised 
proved to be good for butter, and the food given 
proved to be the kind required, it was very largely a 
matter of good luck and not of wisdom based on 
knowledge. We had good butter, because my mother 
knew how to make it. But that was the result of 
experience and not of scientific knowledge. I sup- 
pose that things were not very different from this 
in Minnesota fifteen years ago. About that time the 
Dairy School of the University was established to 
give instruction in a short course in factory dairying. 

Provision was made to give a course of lectures 
in dairy chemistry; dairy physics; breeding, rearing, 
management, and feeding of dairy stock; the dairy 
breeds; selecting or judging dairy stock; diseases of 
dairy cows and treatment; with practical training in 
engineering and the manufacture of dairy products. 

At the time when this short course was inaugurat- 
ed there was a general depression in all agricultural 
lines brought about by a system of wheat growing, 
which had gradually robbed the soil of its original 
fertility, making the crops of wheat exceedingly light. 
Low prices, and the invasion of grasshoppers and 
chinch bugs had caused a shortage of money and a 
rapid increase of farm mortgages. And yet people 
were slow to change to a more diversified system of 
farming. 

At the first session of the Dairy School there 
were only twenty-eight students in attendance. The 
instruction given was conducted strictly along popu- 
lar lines and great pains was taken to have the in- 

—28 



424 ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 

struction in practice work given by persons of ac- 
knowledged skill in their respective lines. There 
were at that time in Minnesota but few creameries 
and cheese factories, and most of the former were 
cream-gathering plants owned by private parties. 
These were, in fact, a detriment to the industry, since 
no satisfactory results were obtained from them, as 
the butter was of an inferior quality and prices for 
cream were correspondingly low. There were, how- 
ever, a few co-operative creameries in the southern 
part of the state from which the patrons were getting 
highly satisfactory returns. These were visited, their 
methods studied, and in 1892 a bulletin was issued 
showing the advantages of co-operative dairying, giv- 
ing in detail the method of organization, with copies 
of articles of association and by-laws for the conduct 
of the co-operative associations and plans for build- 
ings and list of standard apparatus for equipment. 
This bulletin proved of great service to farmers in 
giving reliable information and good advice in meth- 
ods of organization. During the past half dozen 
years there have generally been in attendance at the 
Dairy School from seventy-five to one hundred stu- 
dents, though there has never been any direct effort 
made to increase the number of students. The qual- 
ity of the instruction given in the class room and its 
helpfulness to the people of the state have been al- 
lowed to speak for the school. There have been two 
features in this short course which brought to it the 
good will and confidence of the public. First and 
foremost was the effort made to build the industry 
upon a purely co-operative plan, to have it entirely 
owned by the farmers who furnished the milk and to 
keep it under their control. With us the creamery 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 425 

or cheese factory is a neighborhood enterprise in 
which every milk-prodncer takes an interest, just as 
he does in the district school. The creameries are or- 
ganized upon plans furnished by the school. 

The second feature which has been a potent force 
in the growth of the school and the dairy industry, 
is the character of the instruction given in the class 
rooms. The instruction in the creamery and cheese 
factory training rooms has always been given by 
the most skillful and successful men that could be 
found in our creameries and cheese factories, regard- 
less of their education in other lines. Only men who 
had won distinction by actual work at the separator, 
the churn, the worker, or the cheese vat, were selected 
to give instruction in the practice work. A special 
effort has been made to make each student a useful 
and helpful citizen as well as a good butter- and 
cheese-maker; to teach him that his influence should 
extend beyond the walls of his creamery or factory; 
that he should establish friendly relations with each 
patron, should modestly and kindly offer suggestions 
as to care and feeding of cows, how to provide forage, 
methods of cultivation, the proper treatment of the 
common ailments of cows, and the conditions neces- 
sary to secure a large flow of milk. There are now 
in Minnesota eight hundred and twenty-five cream- 
eries and seventy-six cheese factories in actual opera- 
tion, nearly all of them being operated and owned 
by the farmers; nearly all using the same system of 
bookkeeping that is given in the short course in the 
Dairy School; and every creamery in the state is 
using the Babcock milk test, and I am sure is making 
first-class butter. 

And now what progress has been made in these 



426 ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 

years. As to number of milch cows, yield of milk 



and butter-fat: 












Annual 


Yield 




Number of 


Milk 




Butter fat 


Year. 


Milk Cows. 


lbs. 




lbs. 


1890 


566,000 


2800 




110 


1895 


620,000 


3000 




114 


1900 


789,000 


3250 




123 


1905 


900,000 


3500 




133 


As to 


price of butter-fat 


;, earnings 


per cow, and 


total annual receipts: 










Butter fat 


Earnings ■ 




Gross , 


Year. 


per lb. 


per Cow. 




return. 


1890 


$0.12 


$13.00 




$ 7,500,000 


1895 


.15 


17.00 




10,540,000 


1900 


.18 


22.00 




17,360,000 


1905 


.22 


29.00 




29,100,000 



But this is not all that science has accomplished 
for dairying and stock raising in Minnesota. Pro- 
fessor T. L. Haecker, of the Dairy department of the 
University, has, by a long series of experiments carried 
forward most patiently and conscientiously, done a 
work of inestimable value to the farmers and has 
established new laws for the feeding of domestic ani- 
mals in relation to both the kind and amount of 
nutrients needed to make growth, to maintain the 
body, and to return animal products. He has demon- 
strated that the teachings of Dr. Wolff, the German 
scientist, who has been the authority on these sub- 
jects for nearly half a century, are erroneous, and he 
has so clearly proved his own conclusions to be cor- 
rect that they are now being recognized and approved 
by our most advanced scientists, and Professor 
Haecker has been invited to deliver a course of lee- 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 427 

tures at Cornell University in explanation of his 
discoveries. 

The laws of nutrition and feeding standards for- 
mulated by Wolff were chiefly based upon the as- 
sumption that animals ate and yielded products ac- 
cording to their size or weight. The experimentation 
conducted in the Dairy Division of the Department 
of Agriculture of the University of Minnesota has 
completely demonstrated that all the old standards 
of maintenance and feeding standards for milk pro- 
duction are faulty to an extent that makes them worth- 
less. New standards for maintenance of the animal 
body and new feeding standards for milk production 
based upon the quantity and quality of product yield- 
ed, have been formulated, which greatly simplify the 
proper feeding of cows for milk production and which 
will result in larger yields and great saving in cost of 
production. 

There are certain things especially to be desired 
and sought for in connection with agriculture. 

First. That the number of farmers should be in- 
creased. Almost all other workers are jealous of 
competition and of being crowded in their work and 
of having the supply of labor greater than the de- 
mand, thus reducing wages. But there is no such 
feeling among the farmers. The life of the world de- 
pends upon their labor and it is hardly possible to 
raise more crops than the world can consume. Min- 
nesota is pre-eminently an agricultural state and her 
farmers are numbered by the tens of thousands. But 
there is room for more. The newcomer will be wel- 
comed. He can not possibly harm the farmers nor 
reduce the price of their farm products, because a 
hungry world is waiting for all that we can produce. 



428 ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 

Second. But even more important than the in- 
crease in the number of farmers by immigration into 
the state either from other states or foreign countries, 
is the selection of farming as their future occupation 
by the families, the sons and daughters of the farmers 
— in other words loyalty of the country people to 
country life. 

It is a very important problem how to maintain 
a proper balance between the country and the cities. 
Many country lads go to the cities and become most 
important factors in developing the business of the 
cities. Very few city boys go to the country, and 
those who do are not generally remarkable for their 
success in farming. It is almost necessary for the 
health of the country that there should be a constant 
infusion of country blood and vigor into city life. 
But it is not desirable that there should be too much 
of this. Agriculture is in a large sense the life of our 
country. It is desirable that a large percentage of 
country boys should stick to the farm. I am quite 
sure that those who do will stand a better chance of 
success and be far more certain of independence and 
happiness than most of them would if they should 
try their fortune in the city. 

Happiness is the universal desire of men and what 
they are all seeking. Men have different ideas of 
happiness and how to get it. Most men think it de- 
pends on great wealth or great fame or great power 
or great influence or great something. Generally 
speaking happiness attends on temperance and mod- 
eration. "Give me neither poverty nor riches." Com- 
fort, not extravagance or excess, a home, food, cloth- 
ing, pleasant family life, friends — these are enough; 
and if with these we have the spirit to do good to all as 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 429 

we have opportunity, there is no good reason why we 
should not be as happy as human beings with in- 
numerable unsolved problems before them and death 
the inevitable end, can ever be; and in no class of 
people are all of these conditions better met than 
they can be among the farmers of the present day. 
Labor is not as hard as it once was. Machinery helps 
out. The reward of labor is generally ample, and, 
but for occasional storms and bad seasons, is sure; 
and the life need no longer be solitary or lonesome. 
The telephone helps out. 

But it is not to be expected that farmers' sons will 
remain on the farm merely from a sense of duty, if 
the life is disagreeable. To keep the boys on the 
farm, life must be made pleasant. The home must 
be pleasant. The boys must have something to do 
besides work, eating, and sleeping. There are few 
occasions in the year when I am more delighted than 
at the closing exercises of the Agricultural School. 
The enthusiasm for farm life which the young men 
and young women display and evidently feel is per- 
fectly charming. And their enthusiasm is not kindled 
merely by the thought of living on the land and work- 
ing on it as their fathers have done — with no prog- 
ress ahead — but it is kindled by the thought of 
improvement, progress, ideals realized, experiments 
successfully made, a nobler agriculture created, some- 
thing done for the good of the world; and well may 
enthusiasm be kindled by thoughts of country life 
like these. 

Third. To make sure that the farm will be per- 
manently attractive to the boys, and that it will be 
permanently profitable, and that production will be 
adequate for the wants of the world, agriculture 



430 ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 

generally must become scientific and the farmers must 
utilize scientific discoveries and apply scientific prin- 
ciples to the culture of their land. You might as well 
try to run your farm with the tools of fifty years 
ago, without any of the machinery which invention 
has supplied and which saves hundreds of millions 
of dollars to the farmers every year, as to try to till 
your land without paying any attention to the dis- 
coveries of science in the last twenty-five years. 

Men have written on agriculture many hundred 
years. Yet it is not too much to say that agricul- 
ture as both a science and an art had no existence 
a century and a half ago. And its full development 
as a science as well as an art has occurred within 
the last fifty years. Greater progress has been made 
I think in the last thirty years than in all the cen- 
turies preceding. 

The old time agriculture tilled the land more 
or less effectively and fertilized it so far as opportu- 
nity and means permitted. But there was no real 
knowledge of the constituent qualities of soils, of 
the food necessary for plants, and of the means by 
which the soil's qualities could be adapted to the 
plants' demands. Constant fears were entertained in 
the olden time lest land should wear out and cease 
to be productive, and this fear has been realized in 
many parts of the world. But modern chemistry 
has placed in the farmer's own hands the power to 
restore to the land by rotation of crops and fertilizers 
all the strength which the crops have taken from it; 
so that to-day the farmer can pursue his work accord- 
ing to exact principles of science and need not as 
in the olden time work in the dark with results de- 
termined by chance rather than by nature's laws. 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 431 

Whatever else may be said of agriculture as a 
profession this at least is true. The man who cul- 
tivates the earth and makes it yield food for man 
is doing a work that is valuable to mankind. He 
may become rich or he may remain poor; but there 
can be no question as to the value of the work he 
is engaged in, and no objection can be raised to it 
on any of the many grounds upon which other oc- 
cupations are objected to. Neither the influence of 
the work on the man himself nor the effect of the 
work upon others can in any normal condition of 
things be other than good. And how many occu- 
pations are there of which that can not be said ! 

In the old days it was supposed that anybody 
could be a farmer. No special learning was required. 
The son did as the father before him. A hardly 
comfortable support was wrung from the rocky soil 
of New England by the hardest kind of toil. And 
the farmer who made much more than a living for 
himself and family, had inherited a peculiarly good 
farm, and in some way had learned how to culti- 
vate it better than other farmers cultivated their 
farms. 

But the old style of farming has broken down. 
The competition of richer lands and of developing 
science has resulted in the survival of the fittest. 
Agriculture has moved its headquarters from the far 
East to the Mississippi Valley. How long these great 
states of the West will be able to feed their own 
prosperous and happy people and at the same time 
furnish food for millions elsewhere in our country 
and in other parts of the world, will depend largely 
upon the wisdom of the farmers in adopting the 
suggestions of science and their patience in tilling 



432 ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 

their land in a thoroughly effective way instead of 
the wasteful and slovenly way which, by reason of the 
cheapness of land and the fertility of the soil, has 
been possible and altogether too common in the past. 
I appeal to the farmers of Minnesota to meet the 
responsibilities of their high calling in such a man- 
ner as will not only insure their own prosperity and 
the comfort and happiness of their families but will 
also contribute in a large way to the sustenance 
and welfare of less favored peoples of the earth. 

Eleven years before the Civil War broke out in 
1861, the value of the entire property of this coun- 
try was only about f7,000,000,000. TO-day the prop- 
erty of the country is more than $107,000,000,000, 
and the wealth created in a single year is three times 
the whole value of the property of the country in 
1850. The war cost us half of the country's prop- 
erty. The wealth created in a single year now, if it 
were all applied to the cost of the war, would pay 
the entire cost five or six times. The products of 
our manufactures are more than $15,000,000,000 a 
year, and our farm products amount to more than 
$5,000,000,000. These are great figures. But this 
is a great country and hardly anything surprises us! 
Certainly we are not surprised that 80,000,000 of 
people should produce by manufacturing and farm- 
ing an average of $250 for every man, woman, and 
child in the country, and that is what we are doing, 
and that, too, without taking into account the im- 
mense amount of labor expended all over the coun- 
try in the great work of education and religion, the 
value of whose products can not be measured in 
dollars. 

That is a very poor conception of the highest life 



ADDRESS ON AGRICULTURE 433 

which makes it consist entirely in the production of 
material wealth whether drawn from the soil, the 
mines, or the arts. These products are all the means 
for man's continued and comfortable existence. They 
are means and not ends. The end is the intellec- 
tual and spiritual development of man, not mere 
existence as with the beasts that perish, but devel- 
opment, growth, the realization of higher ideals, the 
apprehension of the grandest truths, the restoration 
of man to that divine image in which he was first 
created. When men everywhere shall fully realize 
and live up to the idea of the fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of men, the divine image will 
once more be stamped upon the race. Let us all 
do our best to hasten the day, in the joyous assur- 
ance that class jealousies and personal hatreds will 
then disappear, and men, loving their neighbors as 
themselves, will uu selfishly do good to all as they 
have opportunity. 



JAMES KENDALL HOSMER* 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

Some few weeks ago at a banquet in this room 
I announced my intention of withdrawing from ban- 
quets, and from after-dinner speech making. I trust 
I shall not be censured too severely for forgetting 
my resolution, and consenting to be here to-night. 

You remember that Shakespeare in his delightful 
play of Much Ado About Nothing, makes Benedict 
explain his change of mind as to getting married by 
saying, "that when I said I would die a bachelor, 
I did not think that I should live until I were mar- 
ried." And so when I said I was going to discard 
banquets and speech making, I did not think that 
I should ever live to see a banquet at which there 
was "Something More to be Said," my toast here to- 
night. 

But even if this explanation is not sufficient, you 
will please notice that I did not come in until your 
banquet was over, and that, as I have not had any 
dinner, I am not making an after-dinner speech. 

If, however, I were disposed to break my reso- 
lution on any occasion, I could find none that would 
be more attractive than the present. And no occa- 
sion would give me more delight than to be here, 

*Extemporaneous address delivered at the dinner given Dr. James 
K. Hosmer at the Nicollet House, Friday evening, January 29th, 1904,. 
by the citizens of Minneapolis. 



436 JAMES KENDALL HOSMER 

and to say in a few plain words what I think of 
Dr. Hosmer, and of the obligations of Minneapolis 
to him. 

It is a little hard to analyze a man, and, meta- 
phorically, if I may say it to his face, dissect him. 
But yet I must be permitted to do so somewhat, be- 
cause he is here for the purpose of being dissected. 
And I am here as his demonstrator in anatomy. 

The first thing that impressed me about Dr. Hos- 
mer, and has always impressed me, is that first of 
all he is a gentleman. 

Now, a man may be a gentleman, and yet be 
very unlike Dr. Hosmer. Undoubtedly every man 
here is a gentleman. But there is not a man here 
that in any essential particular resembles Dr. Hos- 
mer. He has his own individuality, his own per- 
sonality, and all his little characteristics, that all 
blend together, and you feel, as you look at them, 
that they are all characteristic of a gentleman; that 
he wouldn't say a rough and unkind thing to any 
man unless he were compelled to say it ; that nothing 
hut a high sense of duty would induce him to be 
on any occasion anything but a gentleman. And 
such I have always known him. 

Now, it is my impression, an impression that has 
grown the longer I have lived, that there are not very 
many great men in the world There are men far 
above the average in goodly numbers, but the number 
of men that are really great is comparatively small. 

But there is a kind of greatness that is somewhat 
peculiar, which Dr. Hosmer possesses. 

He is an historian of no mean rank ; yet he is not 
a John Fiske; he is not a Dr. Parkman. He is a 
novelist of no mean rank, yet he is not a Thackeray. 



JAMES KENDALL HOSMER 437 

He is a tbeologian of the broad views and the wide 
love of the Charming school, and yet he probably 
is not the equal of Dr. Channing. He is a scholar, 
combining all the graceful scholarship for which Old 
Harvard is so distinguished. He is a student, with 
a love of study and of knowledge and of culture in 
his heart. He represents more distinctly, perhaps, 
than almost any man in the city, and perhaps, more 
than any man, what you distinctively recognize as 
culture; not merely the possession of great knowl- 
edge, not merely the reading of correct books, not 
merely the study of a great variety of subjects, but the 
result of that subtle process by which all these things 
have been assimilated, and made to beautify and 
glorify his intellectual and spiritual nature. He is 
remarkable for the possession of this variety of qual- 
ities and abilities. And when you come to combine 
them in this way, they add wonderfully to the total 
of the man's power and attainments, and make us 
all appreciate, as we must, the fact that we have 
had a man among ns, and have still, and long may 
lie stay with us, whose attainments, whose variety 
of achievements, whose excellence in so many de- 
partments, whose kindliness of spirit, whose unvaried 
courtesy, and everything that is best in man, make 
him an honor to the city. 

And I have felt all these years, when, officially, 
I have been brought into closest relations with Dr. 
Hosmer, that the presence of this gentle-man, sweet 
in spirit, broad in his sympathies, catholic in his 
tastes, refined in every fiber of his high intellectual 
and moral nature, that the presence of this man in 
the Public Library was a blessing to the city of Min- 
neapolis. 



438 JAMES KENDALL HOSMER 

His knowledge of authors, and of books, has been 
of the greatest assistance to the Book Committee of 
the Board of Managers, of which committee I have 
had the honor to be a member during the last year. 

His readiness at all time to do and prepare things 
to give ns the least possible trouble, his efforts to come 
to us, rather than to make us go to him, his unfail- 
ing attention to our interests, rather than his own, 
have been simply superb. 

And in his place as librarian, when men have 
come to us from other cities, distinguished scholars, 
men known all over the world, he has been an honor 
to us, as our representative, in receiving these men, 

Full of knowledge, full of that indefinable grace, 
which, say what you will, can be found nowhere un- 
less the spirit of generous, genuine culture has pre- 
ceded and prepared the way. And in Dr. Hosmer 
that work has been completed and glorified. 

We are here to-night for the purpose of doing 
honor to this modest, Christian, cultivated, learned, 
productive gentleman. 

We are here to honor him not only because he 
has given us faithful and efficient service for twelve 
years in the Public Library, but because all this 
time he has been an honor to the city, before the 
people of this country, and before the world. 

And when men have spoken of Minneapolis, they 
have spoken of it, not exclusively as the place where 
the largest amount of flour is produced, or where 
the greatest multitude of logs are collected together 
and sawed into lumber, or where any other material 
interest has been largely prosperous, however valu- 
able they may be to the city, and to all these higher in- 
terests even, but they have thought of it as a place 



JAMES KENDALL HOSMER 439 

where culture is honored, where men respect scholar- 
ship, where men have a regard for character, where 
men who have made something of themselves by the 
training of their intellects, and the restraining of 
their passions, and the developing of their spiritual 
nature, until they grew to be types of the highest 
men and so far God-like, are respected and honored. 
And Dr. Hosmer has given us an opportunity to honor 
men of this kind. 

Doctor, you are to be congratulated, again and 
again to be congratulated, that in twelve years 
of your life, in your own modest way, with a free- 
dom from pretension that is complete and absolute, 
you have been able to bind the ties of affection around 
the hearts of a company of men like this, gathered 
to do you honor. Go where you may, sir, you will 
J] ever, never, be able to gather around you a more 
loyal and loving body of men, of high character, and 
of ability to appreciate real worth, than those who 
have gathered here to do you honor to-night. 

The state of Indiana produces, I suppose, more 
politicians to the square inch than any other state 
in the Union — except Ohio. But the state of In- 
diana is not honored in these days mainly for its 
politicians, even though in the past they have been 
led by such men as Oliver P. Morton and Benjamin 
Harrison. But they have Lew Wallace and Booth 
Tarkington, James Whitcomb Riley, and Senator 
Beveridge, and Edward Eggleston, who have really 
produced an atmosphere of culture "along the banks 
of the Wabash." And to-day when we think of In- 
diana, we do not think of her as the storehouse of 
politicians, that are ready to break forth and take 
possession of the rest of the country, certainly we 

—29 



440 JAMES KENDALL HOSMER 

do not think of them as sustaining the glory of In- 
diana, but we think of these literary men, who have 
sprung up and in some mysterious way have learned 
to say the things that are useful and delightful to the 
rest of the people. 

What makes Boston what she is? Why do they 
in Europe think that Boston is the representative 
of everything that is civilized, outside of positive 
savagery, on this continent? It is not her history. 
It is not her commercial greatness. It is not her 
material possessions. What does Europe care for 
the Bunker Hill monument? The less some parts of 
Europe hear of it, the better. What do they care 
about the Boston tea party? Or any of those events 
that are sacred to the Bostonians. But there was 
Hawthorne, and Emerson, and Longfellow, and 
Holmes, and other scholars, that lived in or around 
Boston; and there was Daniel Webster, and Edward 
Everett, and Kufus Choate, and Wendell Phillips, 
and Theodore Parker, and a host of others, who in 
Faneuil Hall voiced the highest aspirations of the 
country, of humanity, and of the world. And Eu- 
rope reverences Boston because of her literary and 
intellectual men, that have made that city their home, 
and have given forth to the world productions that 
are as lasting, some of them, as Demosthenes' oration 
On the Crown. 

And when by chance in the good providence of 
God there comes into this western world a man of 
the refinement and culture and light that Dr. Hos- 
mer brings with him, and carries with him at all 
times, we, the common men of Minneapolis, who live 
by our brains, and, being occupied in other ways, 
have not time for the development of this scholar- 



JAMES KENDALL HOSMER 441 

ship, culture, and knowledge, do well, as it seems 
to me, to rise up and do justice to him at this su- 
preme moment. 

And now, gentlemen, I am going to conclude. 

We, who have reached nearly the three score years 
and ten, recognize the fact that we are facing some- 
thing in the near future of which we know but little, 
and there comes to us a sympathy peculiar among our- 
selves, as we feel that it is quite likely that almost 
hand in hand we may go together into that unseen, 
but, as we hope, beautiful land. 

I received yesterday a postal card from a gradu- 
ate of Yale College, in the East, who graduated the 
same year that Dr. Hosmer graduated from Har- 
vard, a distinguished lawyer, a distinguished judge, 
who was smitten down a year and a half ago, just 
after performing an important function in a public 
address to a Bar Association, and he wrote me, "My 
health is about as usual. God seems very near to 
me, and I write to tell you so." 

Dr. Hosmer, our prayer is that you continue to 
reside in Minneapolis with us, as long as God spares 
your life, and while you are here, remember that the 
heart of Minneapolis is very near to you. May you 
feel in truth the love which Minneapolis cherishes 
for you, and in the face and light of your old age, 
may you trustingly look forward to the time when 
you also shall feel that God is very near to you. 



A RESPONSE* 

President Sloan: 

I wish it were possible for me to express to you 
in a few words the very great pleasure which we 
have experienced in being present at your centennial 
celebration. We have listened with delight to the 
sermons and addresses which have been delivered, 
and to the noble Centennial Ode, and the eloquent 
Commemorative Address ; and we esteem it one of the 
happiest incidents of our lives that we were invited 
to be present on this occasion. And now you have 
filled our cup to overflowing by bestowing upon us 
this special honor. The value of such an honor depends 
entirely upon the character of the giver. We are 
familiar with the history of South Carolina College; 
we know the noble character of the men who have 
carried forward its work in the interest of religion 
and education, the two great forces upon which we 
must rely for keeping the world from going to ruin; 
we know the influence which the college has exerted 
in the state, and how closely it has been identified 
with the men who have made for themselves a great 
name at home and abroad, and we are proud to have 

^Delivered at Columbia, South Carolina, at the Centennial of 
South Carolina College, January 10th, 1905, in acknowledgment of 
the honorary degrees conferred and in behalf of those who received a 
degree. 



444 A RESPONSE 

our names placed among your alumni; proud to re- 
ceive this recognition from South Carolina College, 
and doubly proud to receive it from your hands, sir, 
as president. 

We thank you for the honor conferred; we con- 
gratulate you on the success of this centennial cele- 
bration, and we wish for the college the greatest 
prosperity in the years to come, and for yourself 
the glory of an administration that shall give a de- 
cided uplift to the character and manhood of the 
young men of the whole state of South Carolina. 

What a delightful thing it is to be a teacher and 
to be associated always with the young ! The freshmen 
are always young, and they never grow old. The fresh- 
men of next year will be just as young as were the 
freshmen of this year. It keeps us young to be con- 
stantly associated with the young. It keeps our 
hearts warm. It keeps us in touch with humanity. 
Nothing else is so charming and inspiring as this 
perpetual association year after year with young 
men; unless, indeed, it be, in a co-educational insti- 
tution, a like association with young women, and I 
doubt if the young women themselves would believe 
that association with them could be more inspiring 
than association with young men. But when we 
have both, what more could be asked? I have no 
doubt that it is largely owing to this that you and 
I and the rest of us are so young as we are. Time 
can not touch us because of our environment. 

It is a great satisfaction to me that there is at 
the present time such a cordial good feeling among 
the colleges of our country, such a catholic spirit, 
such a freedom from jealousy and unfriendly rivalry. 
We are all engaged in a common work. We all have 



A RESPONSE 445 

the same purpose. We are trying to train citizens 
who will be a blessing to the country. The success 
of one is the success of all. The glory of one is the 
glory of all. The misfortune of one brings sorrow 
to all. 

And so we are prepared to wish for you what 
we would wish for ourselves, that the value of your 
work may be appreciated by the people of the state; 
that the legislature may be liberal in providing for 
your wants ; that the people may trust you generously 
with the training of their sons and daughters; and 
that the influence of your work may so permeate 
every part of the state that the people, out of their 
fulness of joy, shall rise up and call you and your 
honored colleagues "blessed," because of the grand 
work which you have done for South Carolina. Be 
assured, sir, that we shall carry to our homes a most 
pleasant remembrance of our visit here, and that 
in the years to come we shall cherish a most lively 
interest in the welfare of South Carolina, and es- 
pecially of its college, which we sincerely hope may 
become the Universitv of South Carolina. 



LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR* 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

I am certainly very grateful for your kindness in 
inviting me to be your guest this evening. I feel as 
if I should best repay that courtesy and kindness if 
I were to sit down without attempting to make any 
speech to-night. The hour is too late. I have no 
prepared address to make, but for that reason I can 
perhaps fit in better than if I had one, after what 
has been said, for the English language has been 
put to its utmost power, during the last few days, 
to give expression to the American sentiment and 
appreciation of Abraham Lincoln. From the elo- 
quent orator who spoke, the other night, in Brook- 
lyn, to the equally eloquent orators who have spoken 
here to-night, the highest praise that in this age 
has been bestowed upon any man has been rendered 
to Abraham Lincoln, in the presence of the people 
who neither felt nor expressed dissent. 

Abraham Lincoln is the one man in this nine- 
teenth century who is certain to live in all the coming 
ages. Ulysses S. Grant will be remembered as the 
great commander who led the forces of the Union 
through that great contest to ultimate victory, but 

*An extemporaneous address delivered near midnight, February 
13th, 1893, at a banquet of the Loyal Legion, in St. Paul, after great 
addresses had been made by Archbishop Ireland, Bishop Fowler, and 
others. 



448 LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR 

he will be remembered more on account of the great 
events with which he was associated and the great 
combinations in which he was the moving spirit, than 
by reason of any personal qualities of his own out 
of which were produced the elements of victory. Abra- 
ham Lincoln, despite the great things that he did, 
will be remembered hardly less for what he was than 
for what he did. He is a perfectly unique figure in 
the midst of this century and of all the centuries — 
nothing like him since the creation of the world. 
As Ingersoll said, the other night, he had no an- 
cestors, no fellows, and no successors; and it is lit- 
erally true. Born in a log-cabin, in poverty, such 
as has been described here to-night, he did not de- 
rive, so far as I can see, any inheritance of wealth, 
of blood, or even of brains, from his ancestors. His 
mother, it is true, was superior to any other of his 
ancestors that I can find. Lincoln himself said, when 
president, and in the zenith of his power, "All that 
I am and all that I hope to be, I owe to my sainted 
mother." But what his "sainted mother" was think- 
ing of when she married the inefficient and shiftless 
father T have never been able to determine. How much 
of brain power Lincoln derived from his mother, it 
is impossible to say. She taught him to read and 
write. She did more for him than the twelve months 
of schooling, which was all that he had during his 
life. She died when he was only nine years old. 
Think of it! A boy nine years of age, left without 
any comforting, guiding, inspiring influence in the 
world, what an intellectual and moral nature his must 
have been that, amid the great events in which he was 
afterwards called to act, he was able to rise to the 
majesty of the highest manhood and of the noblest 



LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR 449 

statesmanship that this broad country has ever seen ! 
You ask me to speak of him as a statesman. 
Poor boy, hired hand on a flat-boat, surveyor, clerk 
in a country store, lawyer; in the legislature in 1837 
for the first time, just as in the Empire State another 
figure, educated in college, cultured, polished, bril- 
liant, was made governor of that great state. Hum- 
ble, honest Abraham Lincoln, sitting in the house 
of representatives in Illinois, Illinois black with 
Egyptian darkness, Illinois, practically a Southern 
state, Illinois, whose legislature in 1837 is endorsing 
human bondage and negro slavery — humble Abraham 
Lincoln sittiDg there, without a record, without any- 
thing back of him, and God only knows what is 
before him. And in Albany, the capital of the Em- 
pire State, in the governor's chair sits William H. 
Seward, the polished leader, the orator, the disciple 
of Thurlow Weed, the man skilled in management, 
in politics, in administration, in government; the 
man who, as governor of the state of New York, 
did more in the line of statesmanship, solved more 
questions, led to more reforms than Abraham Lin- 
coln accomplished in his whole life. There are the 
two men. And, in 1858, William H. Seward is talk- 
ing, at Rochester, of an "irrepressible conflict," and 
Abraham Lincoln, at Springfield, Illinois, is talking 
about "the house divided against itself that can not 
stand." Here are the two men, the eastern type of 
the polished civilization and the western man born 
of the people, self-made, without polish, and with 
nothing but his own unaided efforts and culture. And 
in the year 1858, this tall, lank, sad-looking man, is 
brought forward as a candidate for United States 
senator, before the people of Illinois, and enters into 



450 LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR 

that contest with the young giant, Stephen A. Doug- 
las. Douglas, a figure to inspire, vigorous, ambitious, 
successful, the leader of the great party, a man who 
had never known defeat; and Lincoln, the uncouth, 
raw, tall, lank, sad-faced young man Avho had never 
known success; the one representing the fleeting and 
passing changes of political policy, and the other rep- 
resenting the eternal truths of God. They fought it 
out upon that issue, and the policy of the present 
triumphed and Douglas was senator. 1858 passes 
by, 1859, and then comes 1860. The tall, plain, com- 
mon-sense, clear-headed orator of Illinois goes East. 
He goes into Cooper Institute and he makes that 
speech, the most logical, the most argumentative, the 
most convincing speech that was ever made on Amer- 
ican soil, a speech which demonstrated the policy of 
the fathers of the republic, of the men who framed 
the Constitution, as to their opinion of slavery, and 
lie closed that speech with a sentence which is the 
key to his character, the key to his success, and the 
key to his glory, "Let us have faith that right makes 
might, and in that faith let us to the end do our duty 
as we understand it!" That speech, gentlemen, made 
Abraham Lincoln president of the United States. 

Now, why was it, when the Eepublican conven- 
tion met and the contest was between Abraham Lin- 
coln and William H. Seward, between the plain man 
of the West and the cultured man of the East, be- 
tween the man who had shown no practical states- 
manship and the man who had shown all the arts of 
statesmanship that the Machiavelli of eastern poli- 
tics could impart to him, that Abraham Lincoln was 
chosen as the candidate of the party for president, 
and not William H. Seward? Why was it that the 



LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR 451 

house-divided-against-itself speech was deemed less 
dangerous than the irrepressible-conflict speech of 
Mr. Seward? Have you ever thought of the reason? 
The reason is not far to seek. There was the difference 
in the two men of just this nature: Mr. Seward, 
though he was a leader, an advanced leader, in the 
great army of freedom, though he had resisted the 
encroachments of slavery, though he had represented 
the Free Soil wing of the Whig party in the state 
of New York, was always endeavoring to regulate 
the processes of affairs and the operations of princi- 
ples by thoughts of the success of the party. Mr. 
Lincoln, on the other hand, beginning back twenty 
years before men had advanced far enough in his own 
state to believe slavery to be wrong, had taken, from 
the first, the position that principle was everything, 
and that upon right principle must rest the foun- 
dation for the building up of a party. The party, feel- 
ing Mr. Lincoln would be planted on eternal princi- 
ples; the party, feeling Mr. Seward might be drifted 
from side to side by the eddies and whirling tides of 
policy, chose, and the nation chose, and they chose 
right, they chose Abraham Lincoln. God bless him! 
they chose Abraham Lincoln, and he was elected. He 
went into the presidential chair, and the great vic- 
tory which has been described here to-night was won. 
And oh, what a man he was ! I went to him, once, 
and sat with him in the White House. I went down 
there as the messenger of Governor Buckingham, of 
Connecticut, to plead with him for a change of policy 
in a certain particular affecting our ability to carry 
on the war. He received me just as I suppose he re- 
ceived everyone else, with a courtesy that could not 
be surpassed. He threw his leg over the arm of his 



452 LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR 

chair and he sat there and talked with me as familiar- 
ly as if I had been Governor Buckingham himself in- 
stead of his messenger. And I saw then, and I have 
never forgotten, why it was that Abraham Lincoln in 
that long struggle in the years that followed, kept the 
great body of the Northern people so in touch with 
himself, when statesmen of no mean reputation and 
generals of great popular favor and editors of papers 
that had voiced the sentiment of his party, deserted 
him; it was because he never forgot that he came of 
the people, that he was of them, that by them he 
had been raised to power, and that for them the 
services of his life were to be rendered. And the great 
heart of the man, the tender heart of the man, was ex- 
hibited in all his career. But I can not stop to speak 
of that. 

What an orator he was! What an orator! Not 
an Everett, studied and polished, like an actor; not 
a Webster, with his mighty and majestic rhetoric and 
his soaring imagination; not a Phillips, with his 
gracefully repressed intensity and his boiling passion 
delivered in ice-bound sentences; but Lincoln, Lin- 
coln, the orator of conscientious thought, touched and 
glorified by a universal charity. 

Oh, the man, the greatness of the man ! How he 
grew as the years went on ! As was said of one even 
greater than he, "He increased in wisdom and stature 
and in favor with God and man." And when he went 
up to Gettysburg, there in the midst of the war, with 
his great burden resting upon him and his heart drop- 
ping drops of blood, of sympathy for his suffering 
country, what a speech was that he made, ten sen- 
tences that will live longer than any eloquence that 
has been spoken on earth in nineteen centuries. And 



LINCOLN, STATESMAN AND ORATOR 453 

where did he get that style so plain, so clear, so 
simple? You may read Demosthenes with his mighty 
argument; you may read Cicero with his sweeping 
denunciation, in clear, polished sentences; you may 
read Erskine, with his admirable statement and 
great common sense and practical application of law ; 
you may read Brougham, with his thundering periods 
of denunciation; read whom you will, but Lincoln 
never got his style from the great orators of the 
world, he got it from the English version of the Bible, 
studied it from reading those simple words that the 
loving John has recorded in regard to Jesus Christ. 
And the spirit of all that he spoke, during those 
last vears of the war, where did it come from? Ah, 

«/ 7 7 / 

it is the spirit of the broadest humanity, best exem- 
plified in the Son of Man. O great-hearted man! 
noble-hearted man ! homely-faced, sad-faced, pathetic- 
faced! the nation wept when he died, and there was 
no friend of liberty and no patriot loving his country 
who did not feel that the world was more lonesome 
when Abraham Lincoln went away! 



ROOSEVELT: THE COLLEGE MAN IN 
POLITICS* 

Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: 

I came here expecting to enjoy the dinner and not 
to be called on to speak. I am half disappointed. 
I have enjoyed my dinner but I am called on to speak. 
It would seem that enough has been already said by 
the distinguished speakers who have preceded me. 
At this early hour of morning no company, after 
listening to eloquence for hours, can be in any proper 
condition to be greatly thrilled by any subsequent 
utterances, and this company might well be spared 
the necessity of listening to me, a private citizen of 
Minneapolis, having neither claim nor desire to be 
included among the speakers of the evening. 

But it is possible that I may speak from a some- 
what different standpoint from that occupied by any 
one else. I propose to speak of Theodore Koosevelt, 
not as vice-president of the United States, though 
he holds an honorable office and he fills it well, but 
rather as the college man in politics. My admiration 
of Mr. Eoosevelt is not in the least dependent on his 
official position. I had entertained the highest es- 
teem for him long before he was elected to his present 
office or to any of the important offices which he has 

^Delivered extemporaneously at a banquet given in Minneapolis by 
Thomas H. Shevlin, September 2nd, 1901, to Theodore Roosevelt, vice- 
president of the United States. Two weeks later Roosevelt was presi- 
dent. 

—3o 



450 THE COLLEGE MAN IN POLITICS 

filled. It is Theodore Roosevelt, the true man, the 
scholar, the thinker, whom I honor. ( It has been al- 
together too much the practice of scholars to stand 
one side with uplifted nose sniffing at the corrup- 
tion in politics, doing nothing themselves while 
grumbling at those who tried to do something, and 
waiting for the millennium to come in some mysteri- 
ous way as a result of their not doing anything; and 
there has been a class of pessimistic literature dis- 
tributed among students and young graduates of our 
colleges for the last twenty years whose apparent ob- 
ject has been to destroy all patriotic feeling in their 
hearts and to make them despise the country which 
they ought to love. Fortunately not -all our young 
collegians have been tainted. Some of them have 
continued to believe that the country was worth 
doing something for, and that they could do some- 
thing for it. But no man ever accomplishes much 
standing alone. The successful man must have co- 
operation. He must rally to his support the people 
who believe in the principles for which he contends. 
Theodore Roosevelt has done this. Recognizing the 
fact that greed, corruption, and bribery are to be 
found in all parties, he has thrown himself into the 
midst of these things within his own party and has 
rallied to the fight the men who believe in honesty 
and who, but for a brave and wise leader, might be 
led unknowingly to help the forces of corruption. 
To-day there is not a true and honest man in the 
country between the Atlantic and the Pacific who 
does not recognize in Theodore Roosevelt a statesman 
who can be implicitly trusted and the ideal, earnest, 
genuine, honest American. The more such men there 
are, the better for the country. 



THE COLLEGE MAN IN POLITICS 457 

I am not saying these things to please our dis- 
tinguished guest nor for momentary effect on this 
company. I want my words to sink into your minds 
and to be remembered. There are serious and well- 
known evils in connection with legislation in this 
country which ought to be removed, and must be re- 
moved if the country is to continue to prosper. Noth- 
ing is safe, if representatives may with impunity sell 
their votes, sell to the highest bidder the power and 
influence with which they have been temporarily en- 
trusted by the people for the welfare of the people. 
Yet bribery and the sale of votes go on. You know 
it and say nothing. You know where the sore is, but 
you do not place your finger on the spot. Nobody 
will do anything or say anything till some brave 
leader appears who dares to face the danger and dares 
to lead. The people will do their duty when the right 
leader calls them. And in Theodore Roosevelt we 
have a leader as fearless as the knights of chivalry 
and as patriotic as the men who died to save the, 
republic. 

The young men of the country believe in him and 
will follow him in auy attempt he may make to purify 
politics, to promote honesty in legislation, and to in- 
sist upon a high standard of personal character in 
public life. Give us, for the good of the country, 
more Eoosevelts. 



president Mckinley* 

I suppose that enough has been said to meet the 
requirements of this occasion, but the audience gath- 
ered here is of a peculiar character ; it is not an ordi- 
nary audience of citizens; it is an audience largely 
made up of the students of the University, and my 
relation is such to them that it justifies me in saying, 
at least, a few words to them. 

While these lessons of wisdom have been laid be- 
fore you, I can not forget the fact that the body 
of our departed president lies yonder in an Ohio 
town, waiting for burial; and I can not but feel and 
almost say in the language and spirit of the Roman 
orator "my heart is in the coffin there and I must 
pause till it come back to me." I can not talk to you 
with the glib and ready tongue that I should per- 
il aps have on other occasions. I must talk to you 
not from the intellect, but from the heart. The na- 
tion mourns; the great republic, that in these last 
few years of her life has listened to the wise counsel 
and judgment that have placed her among the na- 
tions of the earth, mourns ; the great and good leader 
lias been struck down and the people mourn. Les- 
sons there are and many of them on every hand, but 
first of all it seems to me that President McKinley 

^Remarks made extemporaneously at a public meeting in the 
Armory of the University of Minnesota, on the day of President Mc- 
Kinley's burial, September 19th, 1901. 



460 PRESIDENT McKINLEY 

was not only a great man, but a good man; and lie 
was so great and so good that we should not ever 
have known it, had he not died in this way. You 
have been told that he did not possess the matchless 
eloquence of a Webster, the deep learning of a Sum- 
ner, and the unique power of a Lincoln, but that he 
was an all-round, symmetrical man with his faculties 
completely under his power; a born leader; a clean 
gentleman, so that after he became president he 
grew and developed himself and has exhibited a 
power in his actions that no one could foresee at the 
time of his election. Who thought when he took 
charge of this government's affairs in a time of pro- 
found peace and prosperity that his term would be 
one of such momentous importance? At the stern 
behests of our people McKinley led us into a war 
with Spain ; we conquered Spain ; we took the Philip- 
pines; we annexed Hawaii; we appeased China; we 
settled the money question — all these problems and 
the great work of his administration seemed com- 
plete and then in the moment of his highest glory 
and complete achievement he is struck down by the 
bullet of an assassin. 

On the morning of the 16th of April, 1865, as I 
was walking down Chapel Street in New Haven, I 
was met by a breathless messenger who said that Lin- 
coln had been shot and the secretary of state, Seward, 
had barely escaped assassination. At such news the 
heart of the nation stood still, first in a moment of 
anger, then in the agony of indescribable sorrow such 
as this nation had never known before. But the slaves 
were free and the great principles for which this 
glorious government stands were secure. Lincoln, 
whose great heart had been full of sorrow for four 



PRESIDENT McKINLEY 461 

years, bearing upon his heart, as he did, the death 
of fathers, brothers, and friends, had gone ont in the 
evening for recreation and relief from duty and at 
that hour the bullet of the assassin reaches him and 
he dies. On the 2nd of July, 1881 James A. Garfield, 
president of the United States, walks the platform 
in the depot of the city of Washington, rejoicing in 
the peace of the moment, as only such a man as he 
could rejoice, in the prospect of going back to Wil- 
liams College which he dearly loved, to receive the 
congratulations that would not fail to be poured upon 
him by his friends, and it is in that moment of su- 
preme joy that he is shot down, and you all know 
how the nation waited weeks and months in an agony 
of sorrow and anxiety as he went slowly down into 
the valley of the shadow of death. 

Less than two weeks ago in the great Exposition 
at Buffalo the people of the country had gathered, 
not only to see the Exposition, but to meet and enjoy 
the genial presence of the president of the United 
States. Surrounded by the American people, loyal 
almost every one of them to their heart's core, Presi- 
dent McKinley was struck down by the bullet of an 
assassin and in less than two weeks is dead. 

I am not here this afternoon to discuss the policy 
of the country. Friends, I believe in the United 
States of America; I believe in my country with all 
my heart. Born in the patriotism, religion, and wis- 
dom of the fathers and saved by the sacrifices of the 
men and women whose souls were filled with such 
principles and honor as made our Union possible, it 
has been preserved and will be preserved by the loyal 
hearts of nearly 80,000,000 of people and will be 
sanctified by these national sorrows. I have no fear 



462 PRESIDENT McKINLEY 

for its future. But I waut to live in a country where 
there is law; I want to live in a country where liberty 
is not license; where plots to murder are recognized 
as crime and are punished as crime. I do not believe 
that conspiracies to murder either the humblest citi- 
zen or the president of the republic are any part of 
the liberty for which our country stands. 

I have said that President McKinley was a great 
man. I will not follow that thought further, but I 
wish to emphasize the thought that President Mc- 
Kinley was a good man, a good man. He honored his 
mother, that venerable lady that shared in the glory 
of his first inauguration; that had taught him from 
the first the principles of the Bible, and he honored 
her to the end of his life. He was a man who had 
no idea of gaining anything but in a right way; he 
was a man who would have scorned a gain or act of 
selfishness as dishonorable and disgraceful to himself, 
and it would have been. 

Young men, you are going out into life soon, into 
its activities. Eemember there is no path that leads 
to the highest honor but the path of rectitude; do 
that which is right; stand up always for the things 
that are good, pure, and true; do your part in bring- 
ing on the reign of righteousness; be something; be 
a power always for good; know what is right and 
stand for it every time, and your influence will be 
felt in the world. How many of the 80,000,000 of our 
people have such a standard God only can tell; but 
if the young men of the country will take the path to 
glory which is not through selfish and dishonorable 
ways, but is the path followed by, and marked out 
by the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a glorious future 
for this country, more glory than is possible for any 



PRESIDENT McKINLEY 463 

other country to attain, for our fathers have estab- 
lished a country of peace and freedom to every one 
who wishes liberty and justice. What privileges are 
not yours — there are none whatever. The nation is 
to-day in its spirit and loyalty to truth as liberal, as 
just, as beneficent as in the days of the fathers, and 
as such it will undoubtedly continue to be. A nation 
that honors the name of our blessed Lincoln is a na- 
tion that is going to maintain in their puritj r the in- 
stitutions of the fathers. I have no fears for my coun- 
try, for I believe in the people of the country, and I 
know that they will preserve what the fathers died 
to establish. The government goes on. Into Mc- 
Kinley's place steps a young man forty-three years 
old and takes the executive chair; the youngest man 
that has ever been president of the United States; 
a man eminently worthy to take the place, and emi- 
nently able to fill the place that McKinley filled and 
to carry out the policy laid down by McKinley; a 
scholar, a college man, a man trained intellectually; 
a man who, when he had been trained, never forgot 
that he owed something to his country; who did not 
join the self-satisfied critics who find fault with the 
work of others, and do nothing to help; a man who 
will maintain the same political standard of honor 
as in the past, and will resolutely maintain law and 
order; he has proved himself eminently fitted to fill 
every position to which he has been called, and to 
meet any responsibility which may be laid upon him. 
I deplore with the deepest sorrow the great calam- 
ity that has come upon us in the death of our good, 
grand, and dear President, but I thank God from the 
bottom of my heart for Theodore Eoosevelt; I thank 
God for his life. He has been my ideal of the scholar 



464 PRESIDENT McKINLEY 

in politics; he has been an inspiration to me; he is 
destined to be an inspiration to me in the future, and 
I pray now in this closing moment that the blessings 
of God may be showered upon him and rest upon him 
in this sad and trying hour, and in the days to follow 
that God may guard him from the weapons of the 
assassin and make him a blessing to the country. God 
save the republic and make it great, grand, and good, 
and may the memory of our dear President, whose 
body to-day is to be laid in its last resting place, 
abide with us in all future time as an inspiration to 
a true and manly life in the service of our country. 



ACCEPTANCE OF STATUE OF JOHN S. PILLS 
BURY FOR THE UNIVERSITY* 

Mr. President: 

I am sure that for the moment we are all lost in 
admiration of the beautiful statue that has been un- 
veiled; that you and all this assembly feel as little 
like listening to anything I have to say, as I do like 
saying it. I would rather stand and look upon that 
face and enjoy the first impression and admire the 
perfect features, the life-like expression, the charac- 
teristic attitude, which the sculptor has been so suc- 
cessful in portraying, and rejoice in the fact that this 
is to stand here for all time — a memorial of the great 
good-feeling of the alumni towards Governor Pills- 
bury and the University ; a memorial of all that Gov- 
ernor Pillsbury has done for this institution. In be- 
half of the University I accept this splendid gift with 
the greatest pleasure and the deepest gratitude. 

Years ago in a meeting of the Board of Kegents, 
soon after I first came to Minnesota, General Henry 
H. Sibley said to the assembled board, "if the state of 
Minnesota, at some time, does not erect a statue of 
Governor Pillsbury on the campus of the University 
it will fail in its duty, and be grossly ungrateful for 
the services he has rendered the state." I have no 

^Remarks at the unveiling of the statue of Honorable John S. 
Pillsbury, September 12th, 1900. 



466 ACCEPTANCE OF STATUE 

doubt whatever, if this matter had been left for the 
coining years, generous Minnesota would have seen 
that a statue was erected, and would have done all 
that could be expected of her in honor of Governor 
Pillsbury; but I am glad that the alumni of the Uni- 
versity, and the special friends of the institution, 
have taken up this matter in advance, and have an- 
ticipated any action on the part of the state, and es- 
pecially while Governor Pillsbury is still with us. 
The erection of this statue rightly belongs to the Uni- 
versity and its special friends. It is not for me, in 
accepting this gift to enlarge at any great length 
upon the magnificent service Governor Pillsbury has 
rendered to the state of Minnesota. As governor of 
the state, as senator in the legislature, as a leading- 
business man of the state, as an enterprising pro- 
moter of industries, in a hundred ways he has been 
most serviceable to the state. But no work that he 
has done will be remembered longer, and no part of 
his life will bring him greater honor than the years 
that he has so patiently and unselfishly devoted to 
the interests of this institution. A man may give 
liberally of his money and well deserve the thanks 
of the University, but when a man like J. S. Pills- 
bury, strong, vigorous, and enterprising, with patient 
care and devoted interest gives his days and nights, 
he is giving his very life that you and your children 
may receive an inestimable blessing in the years to 
come. There never has been an hour, no, not an hour, 
since I have been associated with him in this work, 
that his ear was not ever ready to hear, and his 
tongue willing to utter, the counsel that was needed. 
Ten thousand times more valuable than all the money 
he has given, is the time he has so freely bestowed 



OF JOHN S. PILLSBURY 4G7 

upon this institution. I do not exaggerate when I say 
that during the last forty years Governor Pillsbury 
has spent as much as nine years in the service of the 
University. It is eminently fitting that he should be 
honored as he is to-day. His real monument is the 
University itself, and it is beautiful that this statue, 
so complete, so life-like, so truly expressive of him, 
should stand here looking placidly at the institution 
which he loves ; it is beautiful that this statue should 
stand here to be looked upon by the young men and 
young women who will come here for the purposes of 
education, and who will be constantly reminded by it 
how much a man of truly noble purpose can do for 
the good of his fellowmen. Governor Pillsbury has 
passed through clouds and darkness like most men — 
we pray that his remaining days may be like this 
bright day. Yesterday was dark with stormy skies; 
to-day the sun is shining, everything above speaking 
of the beauties of earth and the peace of heaven. 



JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY* 

This is probably the first commencement of the 
University of Minnesota at which Governor Pills- 
bury has not been present, and, if it is possible for 
spirits in the other world to revisit the scenes of their 
earthly labors and interests, I doubt not that he is 
here with us to-day. None of his many interests in 
life were closer to his heart than the University, and 
for none did he labor with more unselfish devotion. 

It is eminently appropriate, therefore, that on this 
first commencement since his death, we should 
specially remember him with memorial exercises. We 
can express but feebly at best our sense of bereave- 
ment and loss. Some things are beyond expression. 
Some feelings are too deep for utterance. Some ex- 
periences are too sacred to be told. No words can 
express the sorrow we feel when one dear to us has 
been taken from us forever. That sorrow is not a 
single sharp pang however acute that pierces us, but 
once past does not return. It is an ever-recurring 
pain that breaks in upon our daily enjoyment, that 
interrupts our most engrossing activities, and that 
is sure to visit us with paralyzing longings in the 
silent watches of the night. Time does indeed dull 

*Delivered at the University of Minnesota, on commencement day, 
June 5th, 1902, at a memorial service, in honor of Honorable John S. 
Pillsbur3 r , at which a number of addresses were made. 



470 JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY 

somewhat the sharpness of the pain, but no lapse 
of time can give security that it will not return. 
Once stricken by such a sorrow we never are and 
never can be quite the same persons we were before. 
Our horizon may shut in much that is delightful and 
fitted to give us joy, but something that was most 
dear to us has gone forever, and nothing else can 
supply its place or wipe out our sense of loss. With 
bowed heads and a new consciousness of the inse- 
curity of all things earthly, we go our accustomed 
round of duty, sorely smitten with the thought that 
the lost one can never again share with us the inter- 
ests of life, and that the only possibility of meeting 
him again, is for us in turn to pass through the veil 
which separates time from eternity. 

I have no wish to make a careful analysis of the 
powers or characteristics of our departed friend. I 
choose rather to speak of him as he presented him- 
self to the world. What did he do? Why did he do 
it? These questions interest us far more than in- 
quiries into the quality of the mental powers God 
had given him, or the relative degree of control ex- 
ercised over him by the reason or the imagination. 
He was not a great orator. He was not a poet. He 
was not a philosopher. He was not an artist. " He 
was a man. We need not trouble ourselves to con- 
struct a chart of his brain, nor to locate in the senso- 
rium the powers that made him effective in life. 
With marvelous judgment and common sense he 
raised himself from an ordinary business man to a 
statesman nobly meeting the needs of the common- 
wealth and as governor guiding the state away from 
the path of dishonor and dishonesty to that of honor 
and good faith. He read much and thought deeply, 



JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY 471 

and, from being a very diffident and ineffective speak- 
er, he came to such power as was necessary to inter- 
est, convince, and persuade his fellow citizens. 

He had never received a collegiate training him- 
self, yet no man placed a higher value upon such 
training and no member of the Board of Regents 
had higher ideals of what the educational standard 
of the University ought to be. He was a firm believer 
in the desirableness of collegiate training as a prepar- 
ation for professional study and he has many times 
advocated requiring a full university course as a 
preparation for the study of medicine. Unlike many 
self-made men, his consciousness of great natural 
powers did not lead him to despise study and culture ; 
but on the contrary, it made him feel, as a man of 
less intellect could not, how much the natural powers 
can be aided and strengthened by the training and 
discipline of the college. He lacked entirely the self- 
satisfaction and self-conceit so often characteristic 
of smaller self-made men. 

The first time I ever saw Governor Pillsbury was 
in 1884, when, with three other members of the Board 
of Regents, he called at my house in New Haven to 
invite me to take the presidency of the University of 
Minnesota. In reply to his statement of the wishes 
of the Regents I said at once, "I do not think I am 
the man you want."' I can see now as plainly as I 
saw eighteen years ago the gentle smile on his face, 
as he listened to my remark, the same kind of smile 
that rested on his face in the last interview that I 
ever had with him. I could not then interpret it. 
By the light of these years of experience with him I 
can now interpret it. I had not the slightest intention 
to accept the offer, and not the slightest idea that I 



472 JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY 

could be induced to accept. His smile meant, "We 
will see. Perhaps you will change your mind." And 
I did. That I ever came to Minnesota is due solely 
to his persistent determination that I should come, 
to his careful arrangement of all things to attract 
me, to his patient removal of obstacles, one after an- 
other, with a faith in the future of the University that 
was beautiful to see, and with a faith in me for which 
I can never be too grateful, a faith that so far as I 
know was never diminished, and which I can sincerely 
say I have done my best to justify. And from the 
moment of my acceptance of the office till he was 
shut in by his last illness, there was never a question 
relating to the University on which we were divided 
in opinion, and never a measure for the advancement 
of the University for which we were not ready to work 
as with one mind and heart. There were years when 
no one really knew much about the financial condi- 
tion of the University except Governor Pillsbury, and 
he apparently carried all the details in his own mind 
and memory. As chairman of the Executive Com- 
mittee he practically decided all requisitions, and ap- 
proved of all bills. The details of land grants; the 
state legislation affecting these grants; the location 
of the lands selected; the contracts made for sale of 
land or timber; the purchase of a farm for the agri- 
cultural department; the subsequent sale of this 
farm as city lots, and the purchase of the present ad; 
mirable farm at St. Anthony Park; the management 
of the revenues from Salt Spring Lands and the pay- 
ment therewith of the expenses of the Geological 
Survey; the purchase of coal; the putting down of 
walks and sidewalks; the planting of trees; the cov- 
ering of the sandy campus with loam; the defeuse 



JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY 473 

before the legislature of the unity of the University 
holding all parts of the institution together; the 
securing of appropriations to meet the current ex- 
penses of the University; and still more the securing 
of appropriations from the legislature for the many 
buildings made necessary by a most unexpected rapid 
growth ; the erection of one noble building at his own 
expense when the state failed to grant the needed 
appropriation; the oversight of building contracts, 
and contracts for heating and lighting, and for equip- 
ment of every kind; the appointment of professors 
and instructors, and janitors, and firemen, to which 
he gave as careful attention as if he were hiring for 
himself — these are some of the things which this 
great man attended to, while at the same time he was 
carrying on the greatest interests in the Northwest. 
Loaded down as he thus was always with cares and 
duties and responsibilities and during some part of 
the time with the most painful anxieties and sorrows, 
there was never a time when his interest and atten- 
tion were not responsive to any call I might make for 
the consideration of matters affecting the welfare of 
the University. Such devotion to a public interest 
so unfailingly responsive, so absolutely unselfish, so 
uniformly intelligent and unvaryingly beneficent in 
its results I have never known in any other man 
connected with any institution, whether as member 
of the Board of Trustees or of the faculty. 

For more than seventeen years I have lived with 
him, worked with him, counseled with him, rejoiced 
with him, and sorrowed with him. I have seen him 
go to his daily toil and return to his home at noon 
and at night. I have seen, as the years went on, the 
gray gathering on his face, and his step growing less 



474 JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY 

elastic. But I did not think the end would come 
so soon. And as each morning now I look from my 
home across the street to his old home, I can not yet 
realize that he has gone and that I shall see his face 
no more. "I can not make him dead." 

Governor Pillsbury did many an act of kindness, 
the memory of which is cherished by the grateful 
recipient of his bounty; he aided munificently many 
enterprises for which the world is richer and better ; 
he made large donations for the comfort of the aged 
and feeble, the young and helpless, the poor and 
struggling; and the great purposes which he had in 
mind were not all completed, when he was called 
away sooner than either he or we had expected. But 
his greatest monument is the University of Minne- 
sota, which was so dear to his heart, and for which 
he gave so generously of his time and strength and 
means, and his memory as a noble benefactor and 
friend will be cherished, outside of his family circle, 
longest by the students and graduates and faculty of 
the University, which owes its existence and prosper- 
ity in large measure to him. I can not close these 
services more fitly or more in harmony with your 
feelings than by saying to our departed friend : Dear 
Governor Pillsbury, kind-hearted, great-souled father 
of the University, farewell ! 



CONGRATULATIONS* 

President King: 

We are living in an age when the value of insti- 
tutions of learning is more correctly judged than ever 
before; and less fear than ever is felt lest the num- 
ber of our colleges and schools should become too 
great. Jealousies and rivalries that perhaps once 
marred our educational unity have to a large degree 
disappeared, and a generous pride in a common loy- 
alty to the great work of education has taken their 
place. 

The church school with its special care for the 
spiritual welfare of its students, the old universities, 
of national reputation and world-wide constituency, 
the colleges with their special fields of influence, and 
the state universities with their admirable equipment 
for more local educational work, are all seen to be 
needed, and are all appreciated as valuable auxil- 
iaries in the training of the millions who, in a few 
years, are to be the governing force in this great re- 
public. To train the children of our country for use- 
ful citizenship and to Americanize a million immi- 
grants a year is a stupendous task, and it needs the 
earnest effort and hearty co-operation of all the 

*Address on behalf of visiting delegates from colleges and uni- 
versities, delivered at the seventy-fifth anniversary of Oberlin College, 
June 25th, 1908. 



476 CONGRATULATIONS 

schools, public and private, and all the colleges and 
universities to insure its being properly done. 

I would not myself place the slightest obstacle 
in the path of any one of these institutions in its ef- 
fort to do what it can for the good of mankind; and 
I am quite sure that I voice the sentiment of every one 
of my colleagues here present when I say that har- 
mony of purpose and concert of action among the 
educational institutions of the country are necessary 
for the best interests of civilization and patriotism. 
And never before so much as to-day have this har- 
mony and this concert existed. We are all of us 
able to look with admiration upon the sustained 
power and mighty influence of the great universities 
and colleges of the East. We hail with delight the 
appearance on our western horizon, on the Pacific 
coast, of great universities and reputable colleges 
whether state, independent, or denominational. We 
recognize with the utmost satisfaction the beneficent 
work of the great state universities and the numerous 
colleges of the Central States and of the Northwest. 
And we note with peculiar pleasure and not a little 
of tender sympathy the hard struggle and the substan- 
tial progress of our brethren in Southern institutions 
who are doing noble work for the attainment of higher 
ideals in education. We are here to-day with the 
heartiest feeling of fellowship for one another, and 
we all gather around you now and tender to you our 
united offering of hearty congratulations on the past 
and our best wishes for great achievements in the 
future. 

In behalf of the more than sixty-five universities 
and colleges represented here, I extend to you and 
to the authorities, faculties, students, alumni, and 



CONGRATULATIONS 477 

friends of Oberlin College, most hearty congratula- 
tions on the completion by the college of seventy-five 
years of most honorable and most useful work alike 
for education, for patriotism, for humanity, and for 
religion. Oberlin College was established on no nar- 
row foundation of religious bigotry, or state godless- 
ness, or class distinction, or race prejudice It rec- 
ognizes all mankind, women as well as men, the poor 
as well as the rich, the black as well as the white, 
as the children of a common Father in Heaven, and 
all alike as entitled to the blessings of education and 
to a share in the favor of God. In its early years 
without great endowments, it gave of its poverty 
to many a poor boy and girl, black and white, the 
opportunity for gaining an education, which for most 
of them could not have been obtained anywhere else. 
The spirit of the institution was from the first pre- 
eminently Christian; not Christian in the every day 
meaningless sense of the word, but Christian because 
Christ-like. If the coming of the Kingdom of God 
for which Jesus taught his followers to pray is to 
be brought about by the preaching of the Gospel and 
the establishment of Christianity throughout the 
world, no institution of learning will have a brighter 
crown upon its brow than will Oberlin in that joy- 
ous day when the vision of the revelator shall be- 
come real and there shall be great voices in heaven 
saying, "The Kingdoms of this world are become the 
Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ" ; for Ober- 
lin has been the mother of missionaries, and her sons 
and daughters are scattered all over the world teach- 
ing and preaching the gospel ; while many, very many 
of them, have sealed their devotion with their lives, 
some of them meeting a martyr's death. And if 



478 CONGRATULATIONS 

there be any spot in this land on which we may stand 
and seem to realize somewhat the vision that the first 
martyr, Stephen, saw just before he died, it would 
seem that that spot must be here, at the early home 
of so many missionaries now living or dead, whose 
consecrated lives come to us as a rebuke of selfish- 
ness and an inspiration to holy living and holy dying. 
It would seem that that spot must be here where 
the voice of President Finney for so many years with 
intense eloquence pressed upon the attention of his 
pupils the Gospel as a really divine revelation and 
Jesus Christ as a divine Savior and his call, "Follow 
thou me," as a divine command. O the power of 
eloquence born of intense conviction ! What a man 
really believes he can fight for if it is worth fight- 
ing for, and he can speak eloquently for if it is some- 
thing that needs to be commended to men's hearts 
and consciences. And such President Finney and 
his hardly less mighty successor, President Fairchild, 
thought personal devotion to Christ to be. And we 
are all glad, I am sure, that Oberlin has to-day at 
its head a man who, if with less flaming eloquence 
and less passionate emotion, yet with no less fidelity 
and with greater breadth of vision and larger phil- 
osophical wisdom, stands for the faith once deliv- 
ered, the revelation of God to men through Jesus 
Christ. Aided by a really distinguished faculty, you 
have fitted men and women here for the work of life ; 
you have trained them in scholarship ; you have culti- 
vated music and made it a delight as a fine art and an 
inspiration as a means of worship. You have made 
the most of character and have felt that what your 
students were to be was even more important than 
what they were to know. Having fitted your students 



CONGRATULATIONS 479 

for work, you have so inspired them with longing for 
the best things that they have generally sought the 
best work ; and the stamp of Oberlin everywhere is on 
the metal that is worth stamping, on things worth 
doing. 

Sir, for the glories of the past of Oberlin, for the 
greatness of its present, and for the brightness of its 
future, we, the representatives of visiting universities 
and colleges, tender you our most hearty congratu- 
lations. 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS* 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The policy of our country has generally been a 
peaceful one and I hope it may continue to be such 
to the end of time But we have been compelled to 
fight on several occasions, and once or twice we have 
engaged in war that was not necessary. Our inde- 
pendence was secured only by an exhausting war of 
nearly eight years, at the end of which the country 
was without .credit, its resources utterly exhausted, 
the people so poor that they could with difficulty get 
the necessaries of life, and the currency in which 
the soldiers had been paid so worthless that it had 
ceased to be even paper money and had become once 
more simply paper. Under such conditions, it is not 
surprising that many people doubted whether inde- 
pendence even had not been too dearly purchased, 
and that in the general misery no adequate provision 
was for a long time made for the relief of those who 
had fought and bled that the nation might be free. 
But in time the country rallied from its despondency. 
Prosperity of a humble sort became general. The 
merits of the soldiers of the Revolution came to be 
appreciated, and no man in the community had a 
truer patent of nobility, when I was a boy, than the 

*Delivered in the Auditorium, St. Paul, Minnesota, in commemora- 
tion of Memorial day, May 31st, 1909. 



482 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

old Revolutionary soldier. Thirty-five years passed 
by and the states had become a nation, under one 
Constitution. Population had increased, industries 
had multiplied, new settlements had sprung up, new 
territory of vast extent had been acquired and the 
nation felt strong enough to have the courage of its 
convictions. And so when Great Britain insisted 
upon exercising certain powers not consistent with 
our equal rights as a sovereign nation, the national 
heart was easily fired by the eloquence of patriotic 
statesmen, and once more we engaged in war with the 
mother country. 

Our navy, small and insignificant, won much glory 
by achievements that were remarkable under the 
circumstances, and our army, though perhaps less 
successful except at the battle of New Orleans, which 
was fought after peace had been agreed upon, ac- 
quitted itself with credit and gave proof that the 
Americans could fight. This war was less destructive 
to American prosperity than the Revolutionary war 
except so far as it affected the commerce of New Eng- 
land, and the nation was better able to do justice to 
its soldiers than it had been at the close of the war 
for independence, so that the soldiers of the War of 
1812 fared fairly well at the hands of the nation. 
Thirty-five more years passed by and the nation had 
grown strong. New states had been admitted to the 
Union. Texas, having secured its independence, had 
been admitted to onr Union. The people were largely 
homogeneous, and not seriously divided on any im- 
portant question except that of slavery. A disagree- 
ment with Mexico as to the proper boundary between 
that country and Texas was made the occasion of a 
war with Mexico, a war undoubtedly brought on in 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 483 

the interest of slavery extension, but which, in the 
official utterance of our President Polk, was de- 
clared to have been begun by the act of Mexico. In 
this Avar American soldiers under Scott and Taylor 
exhibited the greatest bravery, and carried our flag 
in triumph over every battlefield, and ultimately 
hoisted it in the capital of the country. A vast area 
of country was transferred to us as the result of this 
war, partly because we had conquered it and wanted 
it, and partly because, having got what we wanted, 
we were generous enough to pay some millions of 
dollars for the privilege of keeping what we had got — 
an example which led later to our paying Spain some 
millions of dollars for the conquered Philippines. We 
had secured what we wanted, for we were strong. 
But we paid for it not merely the millions of dollars 
handed over to Mexico, not merely the lives of soldiers 
who died on Mexican soil. The status of the newly 
acquired territory as respects slavery became at once 
the occasion of violent discussion and, though this 
was temporarily allayed by the compromise meas- 
ures of Mr. Clay, so that the great men of the Senate, 
Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, who had been the fore- 
most figures in public life for half a century, died in 
peace, not seeing the evil that was coming, yet not a 
half decade had passed away before the struggle was 
renewed with new intensity and added bitterness, and 
North and South stood facing each other with fiery 
determination not to yield, both of them realizing 
that the "irrepressible conflict" of Mr. Seward was 
no unmeaning phrase, and that Mr. Lincoln's solemn 
declaration that "no nation can exist half free and 
half slave" had so much of truth in it as to make it 
necessary for our nation to say which it should be — 



484 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

all slave or all free — and before the question was 
settled we had paid the penalty of all our wrong doing, 
if blood and treasure can ever pay. We honor the 
soldier of any war who fights for the flag, though 
the flag be carried out of the country in the interests 
of glory rather than of safety; and so we remember 
the heroes of Buena Vista and Cherubusco and 
Chapultepec, though they fought against a neighbor- 
ing republic in a war of questionable justice. They 
followed the flag and fought bravely in its defense. 
But we have a deeper reverence for the men of the 
Revolution and the soldiers who put down the great 
rebellion, because they fought, not for aggression, 
but for the life of the nation; fought, not because they 
were compelled to, but voluntarily, offering up the 
best years of their life, and even life itself, that the 
great republic might live to be the happy home of 
uncounted millions whom they never knew and who 
would never know them. 

Go back with me now to the fall of 1860. Abra- 
ham Lincoln, of Illinois, has just been elected presi- 
dent. Three other candidates were in the field, 
Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, who of right should 
have been supported by his entire party, but whom 
the advocates of slavery and the secret enemies of the 
Union in his own party, refused to support; John C. 
Breckinridge, of Kentucky, the candidate of those 
Democrats who opposed Douglas; and John Bell, of 
Tennessee, an old Whig, the candidate of the Union 
men who were not Democrats and who were not yet 
ready to be Republicans. Under these conditions, 
with the Democratic party split into two sections, the 
election of Mr. Lincoln was almost inevitable. I sup- 
pose that the followers of Breckinridge, even before 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 485 

the election, were conscious of some scheme for seces- 
sion and that they deliberately betrayed Douglas and 
made Lincoln's election probable, in order that, with 
a Black Kepublican in the presidential chair, they 
might more easily fire the Southern heart, and induce 
their states to secede. Yet even thus, Mr. Lincoln 
was elected by a minority of the people, though he re- 
ceived 180 electoral votes to 123 for all others. Of 
the popular vote Lincoln received 1,857,610, Douglas 
1,291,574, Breckinridge 850,082, and Bell 646,124. No 
state that voted for Mr. Lincoln would have gone 
against him if the votes for Douglas and Breckin- 
ridge had all been for one of these candidates. But 
if there had been no split in the party and all had 
been heartily united on Douglas, no doubt the vote 
would have been much larger and possibly the result 
would have been different. Be that as it may, Abra- 
ham Lincoln was elected president in the constitu- 
tional way; and the Southerners most ardently at- 
tached to slavery could not have more efficiently aided 
his election than they did, if they had desired it. 

Of course as soon as Lincoln was known to be 
elected there was trouble, and of course that trouble 
began in the state of South Carolina, whose lawless- 
ness and attempts at nullification brave old Hickory, 
Andrew Jackson, had so promptly suppressed in 1832. 
Within twenty-four hours after the polls closed for 
the presidential election — and remember Mr. Lincoln 
could not enter upon the duties of his office till four 
months later — South Carolina had begun the work of 
seceding from the Union and a month and a half 
later, December 20th, 1860, she formally passed "an 
ordinance to dissolve the union between the state of 
South Carolina and other states united with her un- 



486 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

der the compact entitled Constitution of the United 
States of America." One of South Carolina's lead- 
ing statesmen, Mr. Eobert Barnwell Ehett, said at 
this time and said truly: "The secession of South 
Carolina is not an event of a day. It is not anything 
produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non- 
execution of the fugitive slave law. It has been a 
matter which has been gathering head for thirty 
years." 

Of course it had. Lincoln's election had not taken 
the South by surprise. They were ready. They 
knew just what they meant to do and they did it at 
once. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Lou- 
isiana, and Texas had all seceded from the Union 
before the end of January, 1861. Seven great states 
of the Union, containing millions of people, had thus 
apparently settled the gravest question of the century 
in six weeks. Ah! how little they knew what was 
coming! How little they dreamed of the uprising 
of the North that should carry the old flag back in 
triumph over their whole territory and wipe out slav- 
ery itself as with the besom of destruction, wipe out 
the very idol at whose altar they were now offering 
the adoration of treason and rebellion. 

A confederacy was soon formed and a government 
established at Montgomery, Alabama. Jefferson 
Davis was made president of the Confederacy a fort- 
night before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office 
as president of the United States. Mr. Davis made 
twenty-five speeches on the route from his home to 
Montgomery to enthusiastic crowds, and was wel- 
comed on his arrival at Montgomery by a vast con- 
course. It is worth while at this distance of time to 
recall some of the things which he said as showing 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS" 487 

the perfect confidence with which the South had gone 
into the secession business. 

On leaving his home, Jackson, Mississippi, Mr. 
Davis said: "It may be that we shall be confronted 
by war, that an attempt will be made to blockade our 
ports, to starve us out; but they know little of the 
Southern heart, of Southern endurance. England 
and France would not allow our great staple, cotton, 
to be dammed up within our present limits. The starv- 
ing thousands in their midst would not allow it. We 
have nothing to apprehend from blockade. But, if 
they attempt invasion by land, we must take the war 
out of our territory. If war must come, it must be 
upon Northern, and not Southern soil." 

Again in a speech at Stevenson, Alabama, Mr. 
Davis paints a bright future for the Confederacy, but 
one no brighter than his followers expected. He says : 
"Your border states will gladly come into the South- 
ern Confederacy within sixty days, as we will be their 
only friends. England will recognize us, and a glori- 
ous future is before us. The grass will grow in the 
Northern cities, where the pavements have been worn 
off by the tread of commerce. We will carry war 
where it is easy to advance, where food for the sword 
and torch await our armies in the densely populated 
cities ; and though the enemy may come and spoil our 
crops, we can raise them as before ; while they can not 
rear the cities which took years of industry and mil- 
lions of money to build." 

These are prophecies which I have no doubt Mr. 
Davis believed likely to be fulfilled. But a just and 
merciful God had otherwise ordered. 

In these speeches Mr. Davis voiced the feelings of 
the South. The South did not expect that the North 

-32 



488 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

would fight. If it did fight, they felt confident that 
the South would prove to be more than a match for 
the North. Indeed they looked upon the North as a 
nation of shopkeepers, unaccustomed to use arms and 
lacking the courage to fight; and they really had no 
doubt that one fiery Southerner was quite the equal 
of three or four Northerners. Under all the circum- 
stances, prepared as they were for the struggle, it is 
not surprising that they should have regarded the 
success of their secession movement as assured. The 
North was slow to believe that the South was really 
in earnest in its seceding ; many believed that, like pre- 
vious political threats, this was intended to frighten 
the North into submission to the political ideas of the 
South. Few indeed could at first believe that the de- 
struction of the republic founded by Washington was 
really intended. Under these circumstances the 
South was ready to act without restraint, without 
law, while the North was hampered by the Constitu- 
tion, by divisions into parties, by a feeling of uncer- 
tainty as to what was best to do, and by the impos- 
sibility of at once unifying the sentiment of the 
people, as had been done by violence and force at the 
South. The South was inferior in numbers, but com- 
pact, united, resolute, seeing clearly what it wanted, 
untrammeled by constitutions, laws, or red tape, 
ready to do at a moment's notice whatever might be 
necessary, not hindered from doing anything by fear 
of public opinion, not needing to experiment to find 
out whether peace might not be restored, occupying 
the inside of a circle on the defensive, controlled in its 
counsels and its operations with a unity as perfect as 
if all power were lodged in a single dictator. The 
North on the other hand was divided and discordant, 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 489 

some opposed to the war on any terms, some opposed 
to war unless waged according to the Constitution, 
some opposed to war if it interfered with slavery, 
multitudes of its people strongly conservative and 
keenly sensitive to loss of business, large numbers 
more or less sympathizing with the South as having 
been unjustly treated, all action hampered by con- 
stitutional provisions and formalities, no preparation 
whatever for a great war, the army broken to pieces, 
the navy scattered, the treasury empty, the president 
almost a prisoner in the capital, and obliged to feel 
his way most carefully lest he outrun public opinion 
and bring on insurrection in the North, and the re- 
sponse of the people to a call to arms for the preserva- 
tion of the Union wholly uncertain. Tell me, as you 
look on this picture and then on that, what will be 
the result of an appeal to arms. Will you not say 
that the rebellion is too mighty, too well organized, 
too strongly entrenched to be put down by the dis- 
cordant and irresolute North? 

Mr. Buchanan had continued to be president dur- 
ing the period following the election down to the 4th 
of March. He had unfortunately committed himself 
at first to the theory that no power existed under the 
Constitution to compel by force a seceding state to 
resume her place in the Union, and it is of God's 
mercy to us that in those three or four months the 
Southern conspirators had not succeeded in binding 
the nation hand and foot, so that resistance to their 
plans would be impossible As it was, things drifted 
along; Jefferson Davis was seated in his presidential 
chair awaiting results, just as Abraham Lincoln was 
journeying to Washington to take the oath of office 
as president of the United States. Even Mr. Lincoln 



490 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

had no idea of what was coming. His inaugural ad- 
dress is a noble argument for union and a noble ap- 
peal to his countrymen to maintain the Union. But 
it was powerless to stay the storm. "In your hands, 
my dissatisfied fellow countrymen," he said, "and 
not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. You 
can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the 
government; while I shall have the most solemn one 
to preserve, protect, and defend it." "We are not 
enemies but friends." "We must not be enemies. 
Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
our bonds of affection." The South has gone too far 
for these words of the new president to influence 
them; and the beautiful prophecy with which the in- 
augural address closed has waited till our own time, 
more than forty years, for its fulfillment, and has at 
last, thank God, come true. "The mystic chords of 
memory, stretching from every battlefield and pa- 
triot's grave to every living heart and hearthstone 
all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union, when again touched as surely they will 
be, by the better angels of our nature." 

There was a pause after Mr. Lincoln was inaugur- 
ated. Attempts at negotiation were made and failed. 
Fort Sumter, almost the last spot held by the govern- 
ment within the seceded states, was denied supplies by 
the authorities in Charleston, and the great ques- 
tion to be decided by the new administration was 
whether to relieve Sumter or not; in a word whether 
to acknowledge itself beaten or show some indications 
of power and of will to use it. It was decided to 
attempt the relief of Sumter. This being known, the 
Confederates under General Beauregard, by order of 
the Confederate Government, opened fire on Sumter 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 491 

on the 12th of April, 1861, and after a furious can- 
nonade of thirty-four hours, compelled Major Ander- 
son to surrender. The flag of the United States was 
lowered and that of the Confederacy was raised. Mr. 
Davis, as advised, had been successful in sprinkling 
blood in the faces of the people and thereby con- 
solidating Southern opinion. But that was practical- 
ly consolidated before. 

What Mr. Davis had not reckoned on was the 
effect upon the North. I well remember the hour 
when the telegraph flashed the news through the 
country and with almost lightning-like speed the 
people in every quarter of the North came together 
at once to avenge the insult and to defend the flag. 
"Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; 
to-day had come assurance and confidence. Yester- 
day, there had been divisions ; to-day there was unity." 
The President issued his call for 75,000 men, and the 
loyal states promptly responded. Men of all races, 
and parties, and grades, and classes volunteered. To 
the national unity and patriotic devotion to country 
at this time Stephen A. Douglas contributed as no 
other man at the moment could, and to his lasting 
honor be it said, did all a patriot could to strengthen 
the hands of his old rival, Lincoln, in his efforts to 
save the Union. 

If we could have known what the next four years 
were to bring to us, surely neither Confederate nor 
Unionist would have had any heart for the impend- 
ing struggle. We did not know. Only God knew; 
and among the things which were to come which 
neither party expected, which neither hoped for, and 
which only a fraction of one party desired, was the 
destruction of slavery, the source of all our woe. We 



492 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

could have bought all the slaves at full price and 
freed them more cheaply than we did, if their owners 
would have sold them and we had been willing to 
free them; but as it was, we poured out not only 
the full price in money, but the blood of hundreds 
of thousands of soldiers, and the tears of millions 
of mothers, and widows, and orphans. It was a great 
victory, but it was obtained at a great price. 

To speak of the events of the war and the innu- 
merable battles would require a month instead of 
an hour. An army had to be gathered, disciplined, 
and made into soldiers. It could not be done in a 
month nor in a year. And so 1861 passed away. The 
sickening defeat of Bull Run on the 21st of July 
sobered us and taught us the seriousness of the con- 
flict. The battle of Ball's Bluff, with the death of 
the brave and eloquent E. D. Baker, sent a pang 
of anguish through the country. 1862 came and the 
hopes of the nation were kept alive for months by 
the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Feb- 
ruary; March 8th and 9th saw the rebel ironclad 
Merrimac destroying the frigates Cumberland and 
Congress and threatening general disaster until itself 
disabled by the little Monitor. March 7th witnessed 
the battle of Pittsburg Landing, where more than 
13,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or miss- 
ing, and 3,000 Confederates were buried on the field. 
June 1st, 1862, came the battle of Fair Oaks, with 
a total loss of more than 10,000 men to the armies. 
July 1st came the battle of Malvern Hill, with a 
total Union loss in the seven days' fight of more than 
15,000, and the same day President Lincoln called 
for 600,000 more volunteers. On the 14th of Septem- 
ber came the battle of South Mountain in Maryland 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 493 

with heavy losses; and on the 17th the great battle 
of Antietam, one hundred thousand men on each side, 
McClellan, Hooker, Porter, and Burnside, against 
Lee, -Jackson, Longstreet, and Hill, with a loss of 
more than 12,000 men on the Union side and a re- 
ported loss of about that number on the side of the 
Confederates. September 22nd President Lincoln 
issued his Proclamation of Emancipation to go into 
effect January 1st, 1863, in all states then in rebel- 
lion and so 1862 came to an end. There had been 
much hard fighting; oceans of blood had been shed, 
but no systematic progress had been made and for 
aught that appeared the rebellion was as strong as 
ever. But the nation was gathering its strength for 
blows that would tell and 1863 was a memorable year. 
One Union general after another takes command of 
the army of the Potomac and fails. General Hooker 
in command fights the disastrous battles of Chan- 
cellorsville the first few days in May, and at last re- 
tires across the Kappahannock with a loss of more 
than 13,000 men. The Confederates' hopes rise and 
a campaign in the North is planned. The army of 
Jjee enters Pennsylvania. June 28th Hooker is re- 
lieved of the Union command and General George G. 
Meade is placed in command. July 1st, 2nd, and 
3rd the battle of Gettysburg was fought between 
Meade and T^ee, a battle fierce, bloody, and glorious, 
the Confederates were defeated, visions of ruin to 
Northern cities vanished, and Lee retreated to Vir- 
ginia, but it cost the Union army nearly 25,000 men 
in killed, wounded, and missing, among them a large 
part of the heroic Minnesota First Kegiment, whose 
record that day will be remembered as long as the 
country shall remain. 



494 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

The next clay, July 4th, Vicksburg with 31,000 
Confederate soldiers surrendered to General Grant. 
July Sth Port Hudson with 7,000 soldiers surren- 
dered to General Banks, and the Mississippi was once 
more open to the Gulf. September 20th, 1863, the 
battle of Chickamauga was fought with a Union loss 
of more than 15,000. October 16th General Grant 
was ordered to take command of the army of Cum- 
berland and Tennessee. November 23rd-26th came 
the battles at and near Chattanooga, the Union forces 
under Grant, with Thomas, Sherman, and Hooker, 
routing the Confederates under Bragg and forcing 
him to retreat with a loss of sixty pieces of artillery. 
March 12th, 1864, Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. 
Grant was appointed to the supreme command of all 
the armies of the United States, and henceforth there 
was unity in counsel and in action. 

Meanwhile the president had repeatedly called 
for more troops and had ordered a draft. Riots of 
the most threatening and violent character had broken 
out in New York, and for a time the city was in the 
hands of the mob. England had shown signs of an 
intention to recognize the Confederacy, and it re- 
quired the most skillful diplomacy on the part of the 
government and the best eloquence of Henry Ward 
Beecher in addresses to the English people to pre- 
vent her doing so. Hundreds of battles from Virginia 
to Louisiana, some of them of great importance, had 
been fought, no special mention of which can here 
be made. It is March 12th, 1864, when General Grant 
takes command of the armies, and turns his special 
attention to the brave but unfortunate army of the 
Potomac. May 5th, 1864, begins the series of bat- 
tles of the Wilderness. In the first battle General 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 495 

Lee furiously assailed the advancing Union army, 
and at nightfall the fight was indecisive, and the loss 
heavy on both sides, but Grant's army was in far 
better position for further fighting than in the morn- 
ing. 

The second day of the battle of the Wilderness 
was May 6th. Both leaders meant to attack, but 
Lee was about fifteen minutes ahead and attacked 
with tremendous fury, all day, beginning at 5 a. m. ; 
trying our right, left, and center, one after another, 
and generally gaining a temporary advantage, but 
only to be finally repulsed by our troops. The bat- 
tles on this and the previous day were over ground 
so rough and so thickly wooded that an enemy's move- 
ments could not be observed. On this account the 
Confederates had a great advantage by reason of their 
familiarity with the country. Artillery could hardly 
be used at all. The rifle, bayonet, and saber did the 
Avork. The result, however, was that Grant held his 
ground and at the end of the fight jmrsued his plan 
of advancing towards Richmond by a move on Spott- 
sylvania court house. In the battles of these two days 
each side lost about 15,000 men. Nothing in the whole 
war more astonished the Confederates than did 
Grant's persistency in advancing notwithstanding the 
fearful attacks made upon him by Lee and the tre- 
mendous loss of men. Heretofore such blows dealt 
to the Union army had not failed to produce change 
of plan and ultimate retreat. With Grant it was 
different; and a few days later he wrote to the Sec- 
retary of War the famous plan of the campaign : "I 
propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all 
summer." 

May 7th the two armies in nearly parallel lines 



496 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

are racing for Spottsylvania court house. May 8th 
there was severe fighting at Spottsylvania court house. 
Our troops carry a rebel position after heavy loss 
and take position within two miles of the court house, 
Lee's army being strongly entrenched a mile in front. 
May 10th occurred the first day's battle of Spotts- 
sylvania court house, our army obstinately attack- 
ing, the result not decisive and the loss on each side 
10,000. May 12th Grant's Second Corps under Han- 
cock charged the left of the Confederate works in 
a fog at dawn with the bayonet, and hardly firing a 
gun, surprised at breakfast and captured within an 
hour a whole division, men and officers, with 30 can- 
non. Hancock instantly charged on the second rebel 
line and took it, thus gaining the key point to the 
rebel entrenchments. The rest of the day was spent 
in furious assaults, — and by the Union army to gain 
more ground. No further advantage was gained by 
either and again 10,000 men on each side had fallen. 
The 15th of May was the first day of rest for the 
army of the Potomac for twelve days. On the 18th, 
after fierce attacks upon Lee's lines, his position was 
found to be impregnable and our troops withdrew 
after heavy loss. May 19th Grant began to move 
his army to the left. May 21st the whole army con- 
tinued its flanking march towards Hanover, Lee hav- 
ing already gone. On the 23rd Grant's army crosses 
the North Anna. On the 25th Grant reconnoitred 
the strong position of Lee in front, and concluded he 
did not like it well enough to attack. He again takes 
up the flanking movement on the left, towards the 
Pamunkey. On the 27th he readies Hanover within 
fifteen miles of Kichmond, Lee again facing him. On 
the 15th of June General Grant's armv crossed the 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 497 

James Kiver, the whole force, having been drawn out 
from within fifty yards of the enemy's entrenchments 
and moved fifty-five miles by the flank, was carried 
across the Chickahominy and the James, the latter 
2,000 feet wide and eighty-four feet deep, with a total 
loss from skirmishing and straggling of not more than 
four hundred men. Henceforth the struggle between 
Grant and Lee, lasting almost ten months, goes on 
about Petersburg, where there are plot and counter 
plot, mine and counter mine, assaults and repulses 
without number, Grant obstinately holding to his de- 
termination to take Richmond and destroy the rebel 
army, and Lee using to the last every man and weapon 
and art he could command to ward off the impend- 
ing doom. 

Meanwhile events of the greatest importance had 
occurred elsewhere. The rebel, General Hood, unable 
to repel the advance of Sherman into the South, led 
his army north into Tennessee, hoping to recall Sher- 
man by danger and destruction in his rear. He drove 
back such forces as he encountered in his march until 
at Nashville he faced a Union army under that brave 
and able general, George H. Thomas — a man ever to 
be honored not merely for his ability and courage as 
a soldier, but because, being a soldier of the United 
States, he, although a Southern man, remained true 
to the flag of his country which he had sworn to de- 
fend. At Chickamauga, with 25,000 men, of whom 
nearly 10,000 were killed or wounded before the bat- 
tle ended, he held his position for six weary hours 
against the furious onset of 60,000 mad rebels; and 
men called him afterward the Rock of Chickamauga. 
The battles of Nashville, December 15th and 16th, 
decided the fate of General Hood, and Thomas' ef- 



498 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

feetive pursuit of Hood's retreating army converted 
defeat into rout. Six thousand prisoners were taken 
and forty-nine cannon and the rebel army was reduced 
to half its former size before it made good its escape 
—a loss of 20,000 men. 

All this time staunch old Sherman, Grant's right 
hand, the man who, though the true soldier every inch 
of him, did not like war, but very graphically said, 
"War is hell/' was marching south to the very heart 
of the Confederacy. Sherman had started from At- 
lanta to go through the South to the sea. Cutting 
the telegraph behind him November 12th, he started 
on the 15th on his famous "march to the sea." I 
need not stop to recount the incidents of that famous 
march. It is a story which every school boy for 
generations to come will love to read. You all know 
it. He entered the city of Savannah, the southern 
limit of his expedition, on the 23rd of December, with 
a loss of less than 820 men on the whole march from 
Atlanta. He marched north again taking Columbia 
and Raleigh, the capitals of the Carolinas, on his 
way, and on the 18th at Durham Station he received 
the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston's army, 
the main force of Confederates outside of Lee's army. 

Nine days before this, on the 9th of April, 1865, 
General Lee had surrendered his army to General 
Grant and the long and bloody contest of four years 
was practically ended. In the words of another, "Of 
the proud army which, dating its victories from Bull 
Run, had driven McClellan from before Richmond, 
and withstood his best effort at Antietam, and shat- 
tered Burnside's host at Fredericksburg, and worsted 
Hooker at Chancellorsville, and fought Meade so 
stoutly, though unsuccessfully, before Gettysburg, 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 499 

and baffled Grant's bounteous resources and desperate 
efforts at Spottsylvania, on the North Anna, at Cold 
Harbor and before Petersburg and Richmond, a mere 
wreck remained." 

On the 33th of April, the last of the soldiers of 
Lee were paroled and permitted to return to their 
homes according to the generous terms accorded them 
by General Grant. And the nation, which had spent 
billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives 
to put down a most unrighteous and uncalled for re- 
bellion, looked on with a not unkindly feeling for 
the brave soldiers of Lee as defeated, disappointed, 
and dispirited they scattered to look up, if any were 
left, their old friends and to find, if still standing, 
their homes. The sky was again clear, the stars in 
heaven were as numerous as they ever had been and 
from Maine to California wherever there were men 
who loved their country, there was joy in the land. 
The sun rose once more on a happy people, but only 
once. The very next night, April 14th, the very day 
on which the Union flag was again raised on Fort 
Sumter, President Lincoln was assassinated. 

No words can describe the unspeakable grief of 
the nation over this appalling calamity. More tears 
were shed over Lincoln's death than over any other 
man's that ever lived. He had carried his burden 
so bravely, he had been so true and honest, he had 
kept so near the people, that everybody who loved 
the country had learned to love Lincoln; and to have 
him shot down by the bullet of a miserable assassin 
in the very moment of victory and peace seemed 
doubly cruel. It was, so universal was the mourn- 
ing, as if death had entered into every household 
in the land. 



500 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

I wish I could draw a picture of this mau so 
mourned in death and so loved by the people to-day. 
Tall, homely, angular, with a face as truthful as truth 
itself, he won the confidence of his hearers by his 
manifest sincerity and convinced them by his com- 
manding argument. Unaffected and unpretending, 
with manners that had no polish beyond that given 
by honest good will, with no apparent consciousness 
of self-importance and even when president with no 
vanity or false assumption of dignity, he had to the 
last the simplicity and genuineness of the country 
man whom neither courts have fashioned nor society 
has corrupted. His sense of humor was keen; his 
power of illustration by apt anecdote unequaled; and 
his logic unsurpassed. With all the natural virtues 
of a true man, he grew in reverence and spirituality 
under the keen discipline of national disaster and 
danger, and his faith grew stronger and at last com- 
plete in the hour of national triumph. What a les- 
son his life presents to the boys of America! Born 
in a hut, and growing up to manhood with almost 
no opportunities to attend school, he yet rises by 
the resolute determination to make the most of him- 
self and by the excellence of his character and the 
nobility of his principles, to the highest position in 
the gift of the American people; and then, by the 
grand manner in which he performed the duties of 
his high office without forgetting that he is one of the 
people, and that the government itself exists by the 
people, of the people, and for the people, he passes 
through the gates of martyrdom into an immortality 
of popular love. What a career — and what a man ! 
He was no less divinely raised up for his great work 
than was Moses, or Samuel, or David, or Paul. 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 501 

It is barely forty-eight years since the firing upon 
Fort Sumter by the Confederate troops under com- 
mand of General Beauregard opened the Civil War. 
It is barely forty-four years since Abraham Lincoln 
died. So many things have occurred since then, 
events of the greatest importance in our national life 
have so crowded upon one another that it does not 
seem possible that they could have all been pressed 
into so short a period. But this half century just 
passing has been a history-making time. The Civil 
War itself was most memorable. Millions of men 
were in arms. The losses in battle were unprece- 
dented. The resources of every part of the country 
were strained to the utmost and the results in the 
solidifying of the states into one nation and in the 
destruction of the entire system of slavery which had 
seemed to be impregnably entrenched behind the Con- 
stitution were more tremendous than those of any 
other war which history records. A nation honors it- 
self when it honors the memory of the heroes who 
fought and died for it. And we are assembled to-day 
to do honor to our heroic dead and to remember with 
gratitude the great services rendered by the heroes 
who still linger among us. We are far enough now 
from the conflict to be able to do justice to all, and to 
appreciate the heroism and fortitude of even the Con- 
federates who fought for what they deemed justice, 
though they fought against the flag of their country 
and the Union of the states! 

We may well be thankful if the bitterness and 
hatred engendered by the Civil War shall have dis- 
appeared in large measure at the end of a half cen- 
tury. I know the North has grown more charitable 
and I think the South has also. We are realizing 



502 MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 

to-day as we have not realized for fifty years past 
that we are one people, with one flag and one destiny. 
This very year in Atlanta, Georgia, a city de- 
stroyed by Sherman's array in its inarch to the sea, 
and rebuilt in these later years for a nobler life than 
it had ever enjoyed before, there gathered in a great 
church, on Sunday evening, a large audience of the 
Southerners called together to listen to an address 
by the eloquent pastor of the church, on Abraham Lin- 
coln ; and accepting the invitation of the Grand Army 
of the Republic to be present and hear the address, 
was the local organization of Confederate Veterans 
who had come to hear the story of Abraham Lincoln; 
and the eulogy pronounced upon the great president 
by the eminent preacher of the South was worthy of 
the subject and carried a thrill of delight all through 
the North and I hope all through the South. The 
incident is but one of many that tell of a re-united 
country, and of a people without division of senti- 
ment, honoring the greatness of the martyred Presi- 
dent, who, through all the years of struggle, sor- 
rowed for the affliction of the South, as he did for 
the bereavement of the North. The memory of this 
great, big-hearted President, is to be one of the 
strongest bonds to unite North and South. And may 
I add what it seems to me but just to add that as 
the South learns to appreciate the greatness and 
nobility of the character of Abraham Lincoln, so 
we of the North are learning to appreciate the great- 
ness and nobility of the gallant soldier, Robert E. 
Lee, whose memory lies nearer to the Southern heart 
than any other; and the gracious recognition of his 
merits by the North touches the Southern heart to- 
day, even as the recognition of Lincoln's nobility of 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS 503 

character and purposes by the South fills the heart 
of the North with delight. 

With this growing appreciation of the bravest and 
best on each side by both sections of the country now 
that South and North have in the comparatively re- 
cent struggle with Spain and the Filipinos, fought 
shoulder to shoulder for the common country, we may 
fairly congratulate ourselves on the coming unity of 
our country and may believe that the awful struggle 
of 1861 to 1865 with its mighty accumulation of be- 
reavement, sorrow, and suffering was not for nought^ 
but was the divinely appointed agency for the puri- 
fication and salvation of the country. 

The great Civil War is a thing of the past, thank 
God! And to-day we rejoice in a reunited nation, 
grown strong in resources and in power, command- 
ing the respect of the mightiest nations of the world 
and abundantly able to maintain its rights and to 
defend its honor against the most powerful. But we 
do not forget, we can never forget the men to whose 
patriotism and self-denial and courage we owe it 
"all. Whatever is possible we would gladly do to honor 
the men to whose patriotism and bravery we owe the 
salvation of the country. And so to-day we place 
flowers reverently on the graves of the dead and we 
congratulate the survivors who still honor us with 
their presence. May the dead rest in peace and in 
glory and may the living rejoice in the prosperity and 
happiness of the country they redeemed. 

The laurel wreath for heroes dead ! 

And a cheer for all the brave 
Who march with Lincoln's soul to-day 

To liberate and save. 

—34 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS* 

One of the best of the many good things which 
New England did for the country in the early days 
was to establish the principle that universal educa- 
tion is a necessity for a free people. It is quite won- 
derful to notice how early and how complete the pro- 
visions for this education were both in Massachusetts 
and in Connecticut. And the scope of the education 
was in degree, if not in kind, fully equal to the best 
systems of state education to-day. 

In 1636, only six years after the founding of Bos- 
ton, the General Court of Massachusetts voted four 
hundred pounds "towards a school or college." That 
was the beginning of Harvard University. In its 
origin it was a state college. What surprises one 
and makes him admire those early people of New Eng- 
land is that they made such provisions for education 
and for the higher education at that, when they were 
so few, so poor, and so surrounded by dangers and 
difficulties which might well occupy their attention to 
the exclusion of thoughts about the higher education 
of their children. But to these people everything they 
held dear depended upon the education of their chil- 
dren. In 1647 the General Court of Massachusetts 
ordered every town having fifty householders to 
establish a school to teach children to write and read ; 

*Delivered at the University of Minnesota, June 9th, 1910. 



506 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

and ordered every town having a hundred household- 
ers to set up a grammar school, the master of which 
should be able to fit youths for the University. This 
was unprecedented in the world's history up to that 
time. Connecticut three years later in 1650 followed 
the example of Massachusetts in establishing common 
and grammar schools and in effect also manual train- 
ing schools, by requiring boys to be apprenticed to 
learn a trade if they were not able or willing to pur- 
sue the course of training in the grammar schools. 
These men of New England knew what they wanted. 
Education was necessary for the good of both church 
and state, and education they would have. 

A writer on the history of education says, that 
"the colonies of the South were settled on the whole 
quite as early as those further north. Except 
Georgia lateness of colonization can not be urged as 
a reason for delay in establishing schools. As a mat- 
ter of fact, however, there was no school system in 
any colony south of Connecticut before the Kevolu- 
tion and no enterprise of the kind to speak of before 
the nineteenth century." It is certainly great glory 
to New England that she established so early a thor- 
ough system of public education and maintained it 
successfully for a century and a half before the other 
parts of the country had established a school system 
at all. What that meant for New England and what 
it has meant for the West where New Englanders 
have settled can be readily imagined. For many years 
the eastern colleges drew to themselves most of the 
men in other parts of the country who desired a col- 
legiate education. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton 
were the favorites. Students flocked to them from 
the South in large numbers. John C. Calhoun was 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 507 

a Yale graduate. James Madison was a Princeton 
graduate. The West had few colleges of any standing 
and fresh-water colleges were not held in much honor 
in the East. Now nearly every state and territory 
west of New England has its own state university; 
and, while many young men and young women in the 
West go east for their education, the great majority 
of those who enter college in probably every one of the 
western and southern states, enter their own state 
university. This is natural because of the nearness of 
the state university to their homes, and because edu- 
cation near home costs less than in a distant college. 
It is also proper, because the education obtainable at 
the state universities is satisfactory. 

The men who emigrated from New England to 
Minnesota brought with them the New England ap- 
preciation of education. Provision for a university 
was made in the act of Congress organizing a terri- 
torial government and, through all the dangers and 
difficulties and poverty of the early days, the idea of 
a coming university was never lost sight of, and the 
charter of the University was at last incorporated in 
the constitution of the state. It required the most 
stalwart faith to accomplish this. Scholars and schools 
for training them were almost entirely wanting when 
the University was founded. But the faith of the 
fathers of Minnesota never failed. I need not here 
repeat the story of the struggles for existence through 
which the University, when once established, went 
for a number of years. The state was poor. The 
people were poor. A civil war drew to the battle- 
field a large part of the men of the state, and it 
was not until the Union had been saved and peace 
had been established that there was a possibility of 



508 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

caring for the University. In 1869 the University 
was organized as a teaching college under a plan 
prepared by its first president, Dr. William W. Fol- 
well, and its first graduates, two in number, received 
their diplomas in 1873. To-day the number of stu- 
dents is more than five thousand and the graduates 
each year number between five hundred and six hun- 
dred. The men who preceded me in the University 
know full well what an arduous task it was to keep 
the University alive in the early years. All through 
the years of my predecessor's administration and 
through a considerable number of years of my own 
administration, the appropriations made by the legis- 
lature for the support of the University were so small 
that it was impossible to do more than to care for 
the pressing wants of the moment. We lived so to 
speak from hand to mouth. Expansion was not to be 
thought of. Growth was next to impossible. And 
when at last appropriations began to be made for an 
occasional new building and one was provided, it 
could not be devoted to one branch of learning and 
made adequate to the wants of that branch of learn- 
ing for j^ears to come, but it had to be divided among 
a number of departments, resulting in a temporizing 
policy of momentary expediency without any possible 
chance of building according to some plan which 
should forecast the future. Thus, the first building 
erected after I came to the University was in theory 
a building for the technical work of the College of 
Engineering and Mechanic Arts. It stands on the 
campus to-day, a monument of folly artistically and 
in all other respects, and I hope its future and speedy 
destiny is to disappear and give place to a more 
sensible, useful, and attractive structure. But poor 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 509 

as this building was and is, it was the best we could 
build in point of size with the means at our disposal, 
and it was made to accommodate not only all the 
technical work for which in theory it was built, but 
also the department of physics and one or two others. 
It was soon found to be too small for its occupants 
and, when another new building was erected which 
should have been for either chemistry or physics, it 
was made to include both and accommodate neither. 
In a short time this became too small for both and a 
new building was erected for physics and the pre- 
vious building was given up to the exclusive use of 
chemistry. To-day the Kegents have in hand two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a main engi- 
neering building and several buildings for shop work 
have in the meantime been built. If we could have 
had the appropriations in the beginning, we could 
have built much more wisely. But the state was still 
poor, and appropriations were hard to get. So, too, 
when the library building was erected ; the appropria- 
tion of one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars 
could not all be expended for the accommodation or 
enrichment of the library alone. Students had mul- 
tiplied. Classes were large. Lecture rooms were in- 
adequate. The chapel had been burned. So the 
so-called library building was built to accommodate 
with lecture and recitation rooms the departments 
of economics, English, history, and philosophy; to 
furnish a chapel for daily worship, and to furnish 
offices for the president, the registrar, the purchasing 
agent, and the accountant and the superintendent of 
buildings. Only a small part of the appropriation 
was spent for the accommodation of the library. 
Even thus the library was so much better placed than 



510 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

it ever had been that we were forced to be content. 
But nobody supposed that a building thus divided 
among so many departments and uses, would be the 
library of the future ; and it has been well understood 
for some years that a new building devoted exclusive- 
ly to the library, adequate in all respects for the 
future growth and uses of the library, must be built 
very soon and must be made not only one of the 
most serviceable but also one of the most artistic 
buildings on the campus; and I have no doubt that 
in the near future such a building will be erected. 

The legislatures of recent years have been gen- 
erous in their appropriations for the University. In- 
deed I may say that their liberality has been beyond 
praise. Not that I think they have appropriated 
more than was absolutely needed or more than the 
state could well afford. But their appropriations 
have been so far beyond all that earlier legislatures 
would have dreamed of, that there is every reason 
to believe that coming legislatures will be equally 
generous, especially when they consider the growth of 
the University and realize to how many families in 
Minnesota it directly ministers. The appropriations 
made for the greater campus perhaps reach the high- 
water mark in legislative generosity to the University 
up to the present time, and they give assurance that 
the development of the University, the beauty of its 
campus, the convenient location of its different col- 
leges, and the providing of sufficient room for the 
work of the University, are held by the legislature to 
be matters of vital importance, and that duty to the 
highest interests of the state requires that they be 
properly cared for. 

Not until the greater campus was acquired has it 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 511 

ever been possible to plan for the grouping of build- 
ings and for the new buildings that will be required 
in the years to come — in a word to plan for the future, 
and now it is possible. The plans for the new campus 
as they have been prepared by Mr. Cass Gilbert and 
adopted by the Eegents, give assurance that in the 
future an intelligent and wise method will be fol- 
lowed in locating and erecting buildings, and in lay- 
ing out the grounds, and that the campus, when com- 
pleted, will be a thing of beauty, a delight to the 
eyes of all and in no small measure an elevating in- 
fluence to the students whose intellectual home it will 
be. 

I congratulate the Eegents of the University that 
they are called to service when so many great things 
are to be done for the University, and I congratulate 
them also on the high ideals which they cherish for 
the University. With more than a million dollars in 
hand for new buildings to be erected on the new 
campus, the opportunity afforded them to establish 
now in some measure the ideal of the future Univer- 
sity is unprecedented. I hope they will remember 
that the buildings to be erected are intended to fur- 
nish room for the work of the University and not pri- 
marily for the purpose of exciting admiration. Large 
sums can be spent in the decoration of buildings and 
in consequence the buildings be too small, or plainer 
and larger buildings can be erected which need not be 
ugly. We have built most of our buildings altogether 
too small. We have not won much applause for our 
architecture and we have not had sufficient room. In 
future let us have adequate appropriations, and then 
build as large buildings as the appropriations will 
permit, even though they are plain. 



512 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

While neither campus nor buildings constitute 
the University, they are essential to the orderly life 
and successful work of the University. But they 
are by no means so essential as is a learned, en- 
thusiastic, and inspiring faculty. And I congratu- 
late the Kegents most of all that the time has come 
when the resources at their command will enable 
them to call to positions in the faculty men who are 
eminent in their special subjects of investigation, 
who can be leaders in research, and who, by their own 
example, can awaken in their students a genuine 
enthusiasm for knowledge. I hope that the funds of 
the University may be freely spent for this purpose. 
It will be a different institution from what it is now 
if this policy shall be wisely followed. It will make 
a great difference if, when additional teachers are 
required, instead of calling in recent graduates with 
no experience and no special reputation and at starva- 
tion wages, men of established reputation as inspir- 
ing teachers and as leaders of thought in their 
special subjects, are invited to come at salaries that 
will enable them to live without constant worrying 
over the family expenses. 

It should not be forgotten that teaching is not 
the only work that a real university may reasonably 
be expected to do, though that is a most important 
work. The university should be something more 
than an advanced high school. It should do original 
research work and find out things not already 
known. But not a great deal of such work can be 
done if all the professors are required to do full duty 
as teachers in the class room. The Independent a 
while ago criticized the trustees of American univer- 
sities for "looking upon a professor as a kind of hired 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 513 

man." It complained of the "almost absolute ignor- 
ance in this country of the precise kind of service 
that a high grade professor in Germany or in Eng- 
land is expected to render to his nation and the 
world." "What," it asked, "would any American 
board of university trustees think of the proposition 
that their professors of highest rank and most highly 
paid should be left entirely free to offer instruction 
or not; or to instruct hundreds or scores, or only 
two or three especially qualified students without 
dictation from university authorities. With a few ex- 
ceptions American trustees would pronounce such 
an arrangement preposterous. Yet in Europe pro- 
fessors enjoy such freedom as a matter of course; 
and the arrangement has justified itself by fruits of 
productive scholarship and scientific discovery which 
Americans can only envy." However great may be 
the difficulty in providing professors exclusively for 
research work, no university can take first rank 
until it has provided such professors, and has done 
something by its discoveries to enlighten the world. 
If I look back a quarter of a century and com- 
pare the education given by the colleges of the coun- 
try at that time with the education which they are 
giving now, I am impressed by some very notable 
changes which have taken place. The earliest col- 
leges of the country were avowedly established to 
provide men for the service of the church and the 
state. And that purpose has so far dominated col- 
leges as to keep the curriculum essentially what it 
was in the beginning down to a late period in the 
nineteenth century. The most vital new idea which 
has affected the scope of education in recent years is 
that men in a great variety of occupations outside 



514 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

of the so-called learned professions, need the higher 
education in such form as to be helpful in their 
life work; and that institutions of learning ought so 
to broaden their curricula as to embrace subjects, 
a knowledge of which is necessary in a great variety 
of employments for which colleges in the olden time 
had no care. If high intellectual training will make 
men better clergymen, lawyers, doctors, or teachers, 
it has been found out that it will also make men 
better business men, farmers, accountants, railroad 
men, miners, and better officials of corporations; 
and the university is now properly called upon to 
lay at least a good foundation of knowledge for all 
of these, upon which foundation experience can 
build. But this involves a tremendous expansion of 
the curriculum. And this in turn leads inevitably 
to diminished attention to some of the old studies. 
When we look for specific changes we easily find 
them. First of all, Greek has lost its supremacy and 
is no longer an essential for a college diploma. It 
has disappeared from most of the high schools of 
the country. It will doubtless have a revival in the 
next quarter of a century — at least a partial revival 
— but for the present, at least, it has lost its old 
standing. Latin has held its old position fairly well, 
and, though it is not necessary to secure a college 
degree, its importance is not seriously diminished 
in the estimation of the best educators of the coun- 
try. Mathematics, partly on. its own account as a 
disciplinary study and partly on account of its value 
to other subjects and to certain occupations, such 
as engineering, still has a firm grasp on the educa- 
tional world and even the educational reformers have 
not been able to displace it for something weaker. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 515 

The sciences have come to the front and no longer 
apologize for demanding a large place in the cur- 
riculum and no longer need fear that their demands 
will not be granted. The same may be said of history 
and of economics and its kindred subjects. Sociol- 
ogy and anthropology have made for themselves a 
good foothold, and the scientific study of human 
beings and their methods of living is to-day as re- 
spectable as the study of other animals. Modern 
languages are receiving greatly increased attention. 
English and English literature have been given very 
large room not only in the colleges but in the schools, 
and a desperate attempt has been made all along 
the line to teach the rising generation how to use its 
native tongue. It is not many years since professor- 
ships of English literature were first established in 
Oxford and Cambridge even, and for a century and 
a half at least the study of English, except rhetorical 
work, was practically unknown in American colleges. 
The value of English literature seems to have been 
entirely overlooked; or it was supposed that the stu- 
dent, being practically familiar with English, would 
of his own volition search out and profit by the 
riches of thought contained in English literature. 
A great many noble writers appeared in England 
and in America while English literature was not 
taught in the colleges. Whether the crop of noble 
writers is to be increased or destroyed by the teach- 
ing of English literature remains to be seen. But 
certainly if the college graduate of to-day does not 
have a fair knowledge of the best English authors 
and of the development of the language and litera- 
ture, it is not because he has not had full opportunity 
to master these in the college. 



516 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

But of all subjects, agricultural science has made 
the greatest progress and won the most marked in- 
crease of attention. Agricultural education prac- 
tically had no existence a quarter of a century ago. 
Now agriculture, with its related subjects that affect 
the welfare of the farmer, has assumed a definite sci- 
entific form. Its principles are established and can be 
taught as readily as any other science, and its value 
is almost beyond calculation because, in addition to 
its educational value, it is eminently practical and 
enables the student who masters it to reap a large 
additional reward in enlarged crops, better cattle, 
improved quality of products, and increased comfort 
in home, and lessened exhaustion in labor. The 
brain is beginning to do for agriculture what it has 
long been doing for manufacture. 

I look for great changes in educational methods in 
the years that are coming and that are not very far 
away. The population of the world is increasing 
and the world itself is not growing perceptibly larg- 
er. Irrigation and drainage may add millions of 
acres to the arable land of the country; but year 
by year the increasing millions of people to be fed 
will more than equal in their consumption of food 
the total products of these new lands that modern 
methods have stimulated into active fertility. As 
the process goes on the necessity for everyone to 
earn a living will grow more imperative; and that 
will force out of our grade schools and out of our 
high schools some of the subjects which now delay 
the scholar's reaching the study of the things that are 
going to help him make a living and he will come to 
these things sooner; and, if he reaches the high 
school, he will find not the high school of to-day 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 517 

leading directly to the college or to life without 
special training; but he will find a high school or 
high schools that will fit him for successful work as 
a mechanic, or as a farmer, or, if he will, for the 
university. But in the university the same necessity 
of preparing for life's work will meet him, the same 
necessity to make it possible for him to get his hands 
sooner on the work he is to do will have been felt by 
university faculties, and the range of subjects taught 
will be greatly enlarged to meet the exigency, and 
some of these subjects will be much more simple and 
practical than any that are found in the curriculum 
to-day. If we are to compete with other nations 
in manufacture we must have trained workmen. The 
apprenticeship system has broken down completely 
for reasons I need not stop to explain. Our present 
system of training workmen is inadequate and funda- 
mentally wrong. Perhaps I might better say we 
have at present no system. I am glad that the work- 
ing men, the labor organizations, have already 
realized this and are fully aware that something 
should be done to remedy the present condition of 
things. If I am rightly informed they look to state 
education, to the public schools and universities to 
supply what is wanted; and they would welcome the 
establishment of schools for the training of workmen 
in their various vocations, just as the farmers wel- 
come the agricultural schools. Their wishes in this 
matter should be met, and provisions made for in- 
struction in manual work, and in the fundamental 
principles that underlie construction ; and to the 
fullest extent possible the university should supple- 
ment the work of the schools and train the future in- 
ventors and skilled workmen for their duties. 



518 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

I am glad to know that a liberal and wealthy 
gentleman of Minneapolis entertains at the present 
time a fixed purpose to endow in the course of the 
next four or five years a noble institution in connec- 
tion with the Agricultural Department for the thor- 
ough training of students in the fundamental prin- 
ciples and practice of the mechanic arts, something 
more far-reaching and more contributory to the ele- 
vation of labor in general than an engineering college 
can well be. 

As a final result there will have come a very 
wholesome sifting of the studies pursued from kin- 
dergarten to college. Useless things will be eliminat- 
ed; first and second and third grade books on one 
subject will be eliminated; no subject will be taught 
till a pupil is able to understand it and then thor- 
ough work will be done in it; at least two grades will 
disappear from the schools in the interest of economy 
of time and nothing essential will have been lost; the 
high schools will provide mechanic arts training and 
agricultural training and cultural training as may 
be desired, ministering to more students because 
sooner reached than now, and helping more 
than now; and the same general course of eliminat- 
ing the unnecessary and the comparatively worthless 
and adding the useful will mark the course of the 
universities. If you do not think so, tell me whether 
the state universities in the last ten years have gone 
towards the eastern colleges or whether the eastern 
colleges, Harvard and Yale, have gone towards the 
state universities. Your answer will show which way 
the trend is; and it can not fail to show that, while 
no institution is prepared to belittle culture or will 
be in the years to come, all the institutions are pre- 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 519 

paring to respond to the call to meet the requirements 
of that marvelous complex thing, life, in industrial 
America. And that they may do it, as many as can 
will have somewhere — no matter what the name — 
graduate department, applied science department, 
or whatever you please — a department whose special 
work shall be to make new discoveries, new applica- 
tions of old principles, to find out new methods of 
doing things, and new things with which to do, so 
that institutions in their training and workmen in 
productive life shall know the best there is to know 
and students shall be helped to a successful life, be- 
cause patient searchers for the secrets of nature have 
discovered and revealed the way. 

It does not seem to me necessary that all uni- 
versities should teach the same things; that as soon 
as one university makes a new departure in any direc- 
tion, every other university should do the same. It 
is not necessary or desirable that all the forty-five 
state universities or agricultural colleges more or less 
should make the same experiments. One successful 
experiment will do for all. In cases of great public 
importance, like finding a remedy for epidemic 
diseases among animals, it may be well for several 
experiment stations to work on the problem at the 
same time. But experiments on the raising of ordi- 
nary products may well be apportioned out among 
the stations and thereby a much wider range of ex- 
periments will be made possible for the stations col- 
lectively. So, too, if one university starts a school 
to train consuls and diplomatic agents of the govern- 
ment, there is no reason why all the other univer- 
sities should immediately start such a school. Schools 
of journalism are desirable ; but it is not necessa^ to 

-34 



520 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

establish several hundred of them in as many col- 
leges. Egyptology is an interesting and valuable 
study; but it need not form a part of the curriculum 
of every university. If one university chooses to send 
an expedition to Assyria to dig for ancient records 
and decipher them, there is no need for all the other 
universities to send out such expeditions. If one 
university sees fit to establish a branch in China, the 
others need not do it. Let the work that is not funda- 
mentally important to the students as a whole but 
only to limited numbers be distributed ; and, if a man 
wants these rare specialties, let him go where he can 
get them. No university ought to undertake to teach 
what it can not teach well. No university ought to 
let its ambition to be as good as any other lead it 
into undertaking to do everything that any other uni- 
versity is doing. Do well what you do at all. If 
new things are to be introduced, let them be those 
things that are most intimately related to the welfare 
of the people of the state to which the university be- 
longs. This will not meet the approval of certain 
people who think an ideal educator is a man 
who is constantly adding to the number of things 
to be taught. I believe thoroughly in the promotion 
of knowledge; but I do not believe in educational in- 
stitutions that are inverted pyramids. There must 
be some regard paid to the size of the base in deter- 
mining the amount of expansion as the structure goes 
up. 

The state universities generally were established 
as co-educational institutions. Of late sporadic cases 
have occurred of a seeming movement to segregate 
the women from the men, and to annex them to the 
universities rather than admit them as of right to 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 521 

the same classes as the men enter. I do not think 
this movement a wise one and I hope it may never 
show itself in Minnesota. If people do not like to 
have their daughters educated in the same classes 
with men, there are a goodly number of colleges for 
women only to which they can send their daughters; 
and more such colleges are coming. But the hunger 
of women for the higher education seems to grow 
with the opportunity to get such education, and year 
by year a larger number are seeking admission to 
colleges, and apparently the time is coming when a 
majority of the students in our colleges will be 
women. Nobody, I suppose, would propose, when 
that occurs, to put the men into an annex and let the 
women be the university. Let us have fair play all 
around and let us be as just to our daughters as we 
are to our sons. I am confident that women are to 
fill a much larger place in the world's work in the fu- 
ture than they have filled in the past ; that literature, 
the fine arts, designing, architecture, farming, med- 
icine and its related professions, and not a few kinds 
of business and of manufacturing, will in a few years 
number among those successfully prosecuting these 
pursuits not an inconsiderable number of educated, 
earnest, thinking women who will have learned their 
power to do many things which they once supposed 
only men could do ; and who, in a new sense of inde- 
pendence for themselves, will gladly lead the way 
to an emancipation of woman which shall save her 
from the suffering and degradation which helpless 
poverty has so often brought to her in the past, 

I have no great admiration for correspondence 
schools, though doubtless if a boy has no other chance 
to learn, he can learn something by correspondence. 



522 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

To what extent the university should try to cover 
the whole state with its lectures and teachers, I do 
not undertake to say. It is for the people of the state 
through their representatives to determine how far 
this outside work shall go. If the university is fur- 
nished with the means to do this work, there is no 
better agency to which the work could be committed, 
and the university would doubtless undertake the 
work with cheerfulness. Inasmuch as knowledge 
is valuable to everybody, I suppose we can make no 
great mistake in carrying knowledge to people who 
are not able to leave home in order to get knowledge. 
But the whole work needs to be most carefully sys- 
tematized and the adaptation of the means employed 
to the object sought needs to be studied very thor- 
oughly. Otherwise there will be inevitable waste 
with very little permanent benefit. When a club of 
farmers is organized, all of whom are eager to learn 
how to do better farming, Ave can not be too prompt 
in carrying to them the gospel of scientific agricul- 
ture. They know what they want and they want it. 
Where, on the other hand, the call for teachers and 
lecturers arises mainly from the social instinct and a 
general impression that culture can in some way be 
secured through the teaching of visiting university 
professors, it may well be doubted whether the uni- 
versity is properly selected to do this work. In any 
event the university must first do its appointed work 
of training its registered students and making re- 
search into new fields of knowledge. If after that is 
done as well as possible, or proper provision is made 
for doing it as well as possible, it is further able to 
carry knowledge to all parts of the state and wisely 
distribute it, nobody can object to its doing so, if the 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 523 

state wishes it. Possibly great good may be done in 
that way. Great good certainly has been done in 
agriculture by the Institutes which are held all over 
the state. The popular hunger demands, next to agri- 
culture, probably English literature, and a great 
many interesting and instructive things can be said 
in extension courses about literature. But a knowl- 
edge of literature can be gained only by studying 
literature. It is never gained by merely hearing 
about literature or authors; and the benefit to be de- 
rived from extension courses in literature, unless 
earnest classes willing to work are formed, may well 
be questioned. Mixed audiences of old people, young 
people, middle aged, and children, drawn together by 
curiosity rather than by any taste or hunger for lit- 
erature, are not likely to be permanently benefited to 
any great extent. There must be a desire on the part 
of the people to be reached for something more definite 
than general improvement. If a man is working on 
an invention, he may come to a point where a knowl- 
edge of physics would be invaluable, and he will de- 
sire that knowledge very much and be willing to take 
it from anyone who is able and willing to give it. And 
so of others. If they have discovered their need of 
knowledge, and know what kind of knowledge they 
need most, they will be glad to get it, and the exten- 
sion worker can do them good. But where people 
have no conception that they need any particular 
kind of knowledge, and no special use for knowledge, 
there is little use in soliciting their attention to ex- 
tension work. At its best that work labors under 
great difficulties in making itself thorough, and at its 
worst it is in imminent danger of becoming super- 
ficial and perfunctory. But I am heartily in favor 



524 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

of doing everything we can to promote the interests 
of the people of the state. I hail with satisfaction 
the efforts that have been made and successfully 
made, as I suppose, to bring the School of Mines into 
closer relations with the mining interests of the state 
in such a way as to help greatly the school in its 
training and ultimately to make the school contribute 
largely to the success of mining. I am heartily in 
favor of everything that the College of Education can 
do to give outside teachers a broader view of their 
work and higher ideals for themselves to reach. I 
am heartily in favor of extension work at the 
Agricultural High Schools authorized by the last legis- 
lature, or by Institutes in every county at which the 
farmers of the county can be gathered, or by sys- 
tematic instruction through other agencies which the 
University may be able to employ in carrying out the 
will of the legislature that most generously provided 
the funds necessary for this work. But after we 
have sent out all our educational missionary expedi- 
tions, I wish it to be still kept in mind that in ac- 
cordance with the constitution of the state the Uni- 
versity is still "located in Minneapolis near the Falls 
of St. Anthony." 

What is the standing of the University of Minne- 
sota to-day as compared with other Universities? It 
is impossible to say. It is doubtless better than many 
and not so good as some. There are universities with 
larger equipment, more distinguished faculties, and 
greater fame. Minnesota has nearly as many stu- 
dents as any, but numbers do not make a university 
truly great. That is conceded by everybody. Ordi- 
narily manufacturers are judged by their products. 
Universities may fairly be judged in the same way. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 525 

This University has never graduated a man or woman 
who was intellectually the equal of Daniel Webster. 
The only reason is that nobody has ever entered this 
University who had an intellect equal to Webster's. 
If anyone with such an intellect had entered this Uni- 
versity, we should doubtless have graduated him. But 
great men are only in a small degree the actual 
products of colleges. Natural ability is the prime 
factor in real greatness. Webster and Jonathan Ed- 
wards, and Horace Bushnell and Henry Ward Beecher 
would have been great men wherever they graduated 
or for that matter whether they graduated anywhere. 
If men and women, with such minds as those men 
had, never entered an institution, that institution is 
not to be condemned because it does not graduate 
such great men. Basswood is not mahogany, and it 
can not be made to serve the same purpose as mahog- 
any. But what kind of men and women are the grad- 
uates of this University? My heart warms as I ask 
this question. Some of them have attained distinc- 
tion, but I can not for obvious reasons call their 
names here. What especially pleases me is the fact, 
which has been brought to my notice many times by 
people in no way connected with this institution, that 
the graduates of this University, scattered all over 
Minnesota and to a surprising degree through the 
country westward to the Pacific, are men and women 
doing good work, faithful and earnest, respected by 
their fellow-citizens and in many cases the leaders in 
everything which makes for culture and right living, 
and this is the testimony which I get respecting our 
graduates of all the colleges in the University. Now 
such men and women are the pillars of society in its 
true sense. They are leaders within the sphere in 



526 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

which they move. They form public opinion. I be- 
lieve that our graduates are as useful, as devoted to 
the right, as earnest to promote the best interest of 
the state and nation as the graduates of any university 
in the land. 

But we are not left entirely to the character of 
our graduates in determining the standing of our 
University. The Association of American Univer- 
sities confessedly contains the best institutions in the 
country, including the traditionally noted eastern in- 
stitutions, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton. 
Two years ago, after careful examination of this in- 
stitution and its work, Minnesota was by a unanimous 
vote admitted as a member of that association. This 
University is one of the three or four state universities 
that have been accepted by the Carnegie Foundation 
as meeting the requirements for institutions whose 
retiring professors may receive a pension. We have 
steadily but surely raised our standard of require- 
ments for admission to the professional schools. Two 
years of college work are now required of a student 
before he can be admitted to our College of Medicine. 
Cue year of college work is required before one can 
enter the Law College as a candidate for a degree and 
two years are required after the next year. The 
course in engineering has been extended to five years, 
which practically provides for two years of college 
work before the technical work of engineering is taken 
up. The University has established a five-year course 
in the School of Mines, in addition to the four-year 
course. All of these changes are strongly in the in- 
terest of higher and better work and they ought to 
be satisfactory evidence that the standard of scholar- 
ship in the University has been decidedly raised, 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 527 

But in one particular the University is very much 
behind many others, and that is in its graduate depart- 
ment. This is not due to any fault of the dean of 
that department nor of any of the professors who 
teach graduate students. It is simply because the Re- 
gents have done nothing to build up the department 
or to help others build it up. I regret that this weak 
spot in the University should exist and be so apparent. 
The very essence of a university ought to be its ability 
to furnish advanced work to its own graduates and 
the graduates of other colleges where no graduate 
work can be had. So long as the Regents are indiffer- 
ent to the building up of the Graduate School, the 
University Avill suffer in comparison with institutions 
whose graduate work is strong and attractive. 

I do not believe that this weakness of our Uni- 
versity will long be permitted to remain, for the 
present Board of Regents is not insensible of the value 
of graduate work, and can not fail to see that it must 
be encouraged in this University if Minnesota is to 
maintain even her present standing among the univer- 
sities of the country. 

It is well understood that the University belongs 
to the state, and that the legislature may be expected 
to provide the necessary funds for carrying on the 
work successfully. This is the chief reason why so 
few private gifts come to state universities. But there 
are some things most necessary for the welfare of 
the students of the University which the state with 
all the other demands upon it can not immediately 
provide and will be a long time in reaching. An ex- 
ample of what I mean is Alice Shevlin Hall. I can 
not speak too enthusiastically of the good that build- 
ing has done to the women of the University. It has 



528 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

brought them together in harmony and concord. It 
has given them retirement and rest when needed. It 
has multiplied friendships, it has comforted the lone- 
ly, it has trained the awkward, it has refined the noisy, 
it has civilized and in the best sense Christianized 
all. We need a similar building for the men. It 
would do a world of good to the men, especially to 
those who do not live at home. It would improve 
their manners. It would tell for better morals. It 
would promote brotherhood. It would multiply and 
make permanent friendships. It would bring faculty 
and students together in closer touch and in helpful 
association. I can hardly think of anything helpful 
to the boys which it would not do. There are many 
rich men in Minnesota. How easily they could build 
this building if they would; and what would it be 
if they did build it? It would be one of the most 
effective contributions which it is possible for them 
to make, for it would tell mightily on the habits, and 
manners, and character of the men of the University 
and its influence would be as prolonged as Eternity. 
If some of these men who have amassed great fortunes 
could only realize the greatness of the opportunity 
and build a proper building for the men, their hearts 
would sing for joy when in the coming years they 
saw the fruits of their liberality in the thousands of 
young men who would have been trained into the 
highest manliness and nobility of character through 
their beneficence. 

The purpose of most individuals who emigrate to 
a new country is to improve their condition. They ex- 
pect to gain wealth as they could not in the place of 
their birth. They expect to improve in some way their 
environment with greater freedom, greater possibil- 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 529 

ities, and new and perhaps nobler ideals. Some get 
all they hoped for when they have a house to shelter 
them and land to yield a living. Some go a little 
farther and add to this, social standing and increased 
influence among their fellow-citizens. Some go fur- 
ther and make their influence felt in the formation 
of institutions and the passage of laws. And some 
go even further and attain their ideals only when the 
life of the people is, so to speak, placed in their hands 
to be made in all respects what it ought to be, intel- 
lectually, morally, politically, and spiritually. Min- 
nesota has from the first received into her borders 
representatives of all these classes, and she has them 
in large numbers to-day. The largest class is the in- 
dividual class content with the comfort of the home 
and the family. Ambition for social influence, for po- 
litical power, for religious impress, is not wanting and 
characterizes large numbers of people. But all are 
thrown together in a democracy, in what we call the 
State, and all pursue their chosen path, influencing 
one another in more ways than can be imagined, and 
in some ways that can not be seen. And the outcome 
is to be what no man can foresee, but what we all 
hope will be a state truly imperial in its resources, in 
the character of its people, and in the happiness 
and purpose of their life. The final thing is to make 
life what it ought to be, happy if possible, useful in 
any event, and everywhere among all classes as loyal 
to the truth as the needle is to the pole. 

It is not possible to trace the influence of every in- 
dividual through the maze out of which appear at last 
the power and the grandeur of the state. The largest 
number of people live so quietly and peacefully that 
the influence of their lives can hardly be seen or felt. 



530 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

Yet it is a real influence. He that is not against us 
is for us. What the leaders of thought propose, the 
quiet thousands are ready to support and they do 
support by just standing firm behind their leaders 
and the leaders themselves sometimes appear sudden- 
ly from the midst of these quiet people among whom 
they have lived and of whom they have been a part. 
A New England storekeeper comes here from New 
Hampshire and opens a hardware store. He is a man 
of sterling character and clear vision and great com- 
mon sense ; and he looks out for the good of the com- 
munity into which he has moved. With the New 
England instinct for education, he sees the possibil- 
ities of the future, and he so guides the frail bark 
of the recently launched University through the 
rapids of legislation and over the falls of financial 
disaster, as to bring it at last into safe and peaceful 
waters and to win for himself justly the title of the 
Father of the University. Men easily forget. It is 
well that the monument of John S. Pillsbury stands 
yonder, that men may not forget what he was and 
what he did not only for the University but for the 
honor of Minnesota. 

A young soldier called to the presidency of a Uni- 
versity that could hardly then be said even to be a 
university on paper, comes here ; formulates plans for 
a university, with its various colleges; formulates a 
system of public education that shall at once feed the 
university and train the youth for a life worth living 
even if they do not go to the university ; lays founda- 
tions for the best education possible for all classes of 
people in the state; makes his mark indelibly on the 
character of the state, and I know not on how much 
beyond that; and the noble building on the campus, 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 531 

erected to supply the loss of the old main building, 
not unworthily commemorates his achievements as it 
bears the name of Folwell Hall. 

The great and difficult problem of agricultural 
education in this state, over which legislatures and 
farmers' conventions had wrangled and grown angry, 
was practically solved, by a teacher, a Presbyterian 
clergyman, whose official position brought him into 
the Board of Regents as a member, and who sug- 
gested the plan for a School of . Agriculture within 
reach of the farmer's boy ; and the honor that attaches 
to the success of that school may justly in large meas- 
ure be given to David L. Kiehle; and I hope the Re- 
gents will at some time establish a memorial that will 
not suffer his name to be forgotten. 

A quiet citizen who had known good fortune and 
bad fortune and who had borne himself with equal 
modesty and composure under both, was nominated 
for senator by a vote so close that only a court of 
justice could decide whether he was nominated or 
not. He was elected and went to the Capitol. He 
made no great speeches. But he took up the idea 
originally suggested by Chelsea J. Rockwood, a grad- 
uate of the University, that the University of Minne- 
sota needed a larger campus. He pervaded the 
Senate and the House, the whole legislature, like 
perpetual sunshine and he won ; and when the greater 
campus shall be completed and shall become a thing 
of beauty to be admired by all the people of Minne- 
sota and to be enjoyed by generation after generation 
of students, let the name of James T. Elwell be al- 
ways remembered with honor and gratitude. 

I can not close this address without making special 
allusion to the great sorrow which came to the Uni- 



532 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 

versity and to the state of Minnesota when Governor 
John A. Johnson died. He was ex-officio a member of 
the Board of Begents, and all the other members of 
the Board, with the exception of the president of the 
University, were subject to his appointment. His in- 
fluence in the Board was very great as would be natu- 
ral in any case, but was especially great because he 
took a deep interest in the University and attended 
the meetings of the Board whenever it was possible 
for him to do so. He was a man marvelously winning 
and attractive in his manners and personality. He 
was firm in adhering to his convictions. He was 
clean in his life. He was gentle and kind to those 
who were not the favorites of fortune. He was a 
foremost man among men — and as I saw him in the 
Convention of Governors of the various states called 
together at the White House by President Boosevelt, 
he was a foremost Governor among the Governors. 
And the specially interesting fact connected with his 
prominence, the fact which gave special significance 
to his whole career, was that he was most emphatical- 
ly a self-made man. He was not largely indebted to 
the schools, and not at all to the college for his train- 
ing, but by the simple process of reading and thinking 
he grew to the high stature of a most commanding 
public official, and multitudes believe, what no one 
can with authority deny, that if his life had not been 
cut short in the untimely way it was, he would at 
some time have become president of the United States. 
We can not tell what would have been. But we can 
not but admire the patient process of self -improve- 
ment by which he advanced from obscurity to great- 
ness, and can not but feel that if he had lived to reach 
the highest office in the gift of the people, he would, 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 533 

in character, in purpose, in ideals, in address, and in 
courtesy have done honor to the office. His untimely 
death saddened the people of Minnesota and I hope 
sobered them as they were made to realize the uncer- 
tainty of life and of human destiny in this world. 

I am about to retire from the office of president 
of the University of Minnesota which I have held for 
twenty-six years. I have had no intention to make 
this an occasion for a farewell address. Why should 
I? I am not going away from you. I expect to live 
the remnant of my life in Minnesota. I expect to be 
interested in the welfare of the University as I have 
been. I expect to watch its progress and improve- 
ment with the utmost pleasure. I shall not suggest 
any policy or lay down any line of action for my suc- 
cessor. I think the Eegents will be most fortunate 
in securing the scholarly and able gentleman who is 
to be the next president and I predict for him a bril- 
liant and most satisfactory administration. To the 
Regents of the University who have always been kind 
to me, to the faculty who have been loyal and faithful, 
to the students who have given me far more love and 
devotion than I deserved, to the alumni who have not 
forgotten their Alma Mater and who year by year 
are giving evidence of their readiness to help in many 
ways, and to the people of Minnesota to whom the 
University belongs, and who mean that it shall be 
made a truly great university, I return my most grate- 
ful thanks for the treatment I have received at their 
hands during more than a quarter of a century of 
peace and happiness as president of the University, 
and I pledge you all my continued best wishes for the 
prosperity of the University and for the happiness of 
all who are in any way connected with it. 



INDEX. 

Advice to young physicians , 21 5-229 

Agriculture, in Minnesota 395 

Scientific education in 396-398 

What Regents of University have done 

for 399-407, 423-427 

Separation from the University of the College of 406-413 

Horticultural Society 393, 394 

Farmers want more farmers 413 

Loyalty of country people to country life 428 

Number of farmers to be increased 427 

Agriculture must be scientific 429 

Old style farming a failure 43 1 

Products of agriculture 432 

Ideal for workers 433 

State Fair 419 

The Dairy School 423 

Improvement in dairying 422, 426-427 

Altruism, National, commended 367 

America, Colonization of 27-30 

Expansion of, in the past, 363, 364 

Appeal to the South 49 

Appeal for good citizenship 168, 169 

Bacon, Leonard 5 

Baconian philosophy 181 

Bare life in early days 373 

Barnard, Henry 15 

Battle Hymn of the Republic 367 

Beloit College 14 

Boston * 374 



ii INDEX 

Boys, Ideals for 231-243 

Building college for eternity 352 

Buchanan, James 489 

Unfortunate theory of 489 

Bushnell, Horace 5 

Calhoun, John C 337 

Chicago 374 

Choate, Rufus 62-71 

Churches, State 378 

Clark, Josiah 7 

Clay, Henry 321, 337 

Cleveland, Grover 325-327 

Action of, in Venezuela dispute 326 

Action of, in Chicago strike - 326 

His use of the veto 326 

In Princeton 327 

College graduates, Work for 151-165 

As teachers 152 

As business men 153 

As leaders in labor 154 

As railroad men 156 

As journalists 157 

As authors 158 

As farmers 159 

College, Denominational 349 

Attitude of state universities towards 357-360 

Colleges of New England formerly denomina- 
tional 348 

Now simply Christian 348 

Value of the good 350, 353 

The old and the new ! 353-355 

Columbia University 11 

Connecticut 506 

Contentment, not produced by education 387 

Not necessarily desirable 387, 388 

True meaning of 387 

Corwin, Thomas 339 



INDEX iii 

Courts not like legislatures. ....... 92-94 

Party feeling 102-104 

Supreme Court 101 

Country, Centennial review of 42-47 

Dangers to 105-112 

Culture 187 

Dartmouth College 11 

Davis, Jefferson 486 

Speeches of 487 

Douglas, Stephen A 200, 206, 338, 339,450,484 

D wight, Timothy 6 

Education, Early colonists earnest for 113 

Old and new 187 

The best 185 

Varieties of, needed 171 

Modern, an irrigating system 177 

Glory of 184-192 

Public, not to be charged with all our evils. ... 382 

The old — the man before the specialist 187 

Universal, for free people 505 

Eloquence 63-69 

Decay of, has compensation 179-183 

In Parliament 77-82 

Lasting theme for 63-69 

Erskine, Lord Chancellor 69 

False view of life 160 

Farmers for congressmen. 160 

Feudal lord 389 

Forum, The 380 

Franklin, Benjamin 301 

Wise maxims of 311-312 

Free education, criticised 380, 381 

Defended 382-386 

Germany's progress in trade 165 

Gilman, Daniel Coit 16 

Grant, U. S 447 



iv INDEX 

Great Britain, War with 482 

Friendly to United States 367 

Greater Whitman College 451 

Hadley, Arthur T. . . 9 

Hamilton College 11 

Harper, William R 20 

Harris, J. S 394 

Harris, William T 18 

Harvard University 332-505 

Hawaii 368 

Heroism, True 203, 204, 484 

Hosmer, James K. 

Speaking in honor of 435 

A gentleman 436 

An historian 436 

A novelist 436 

A theologian 437 

A scholar 437 

A man of culture 437 

An honor to the city as librarian 437, 438 

Idaho . 356 

Indiana 439 

Illinois College 14 

Imperialism 366, 367 

Independence, Declaration of 34 

Kansas- Nebraska Bill 199 

Knowledge and power 1 76 

Knowledge not all 191 

Labor, Captains of 167 

Laboratories, Work in 188, 189 

Lawyers, Special advantages of 57-61 

A conservative force 88 

In Congress 95 

Duty to the state 97 

Lee, Robert E., Northern appreciation of 502 

Lincoln, Abraham 76, 209, 210, 336-345, 365,447-453, 460 

Debate with Douglas 339 



INDEX v 

Lincoln, Abraham — (Continued) 

Cooper Institute speech 339 

Gettysburg speech 342 

Sorrow for the South . 340 

Waiting to be merciful 341 

His style 453 

Inaugural address 490 

Prophecy fulfilled 490 

Mourning for 499 

His personality 500 

Southern appreciation of , 502 

Louisiana, Purchase of 195 

Results of purchase 196 

MacVeagh, Wayne 3 

Marshall, John 98-100 

Massachusetts 505 

McKinley, President 459-464 

Hero of Spanish War 366 

Millennium, Educational, not yet 175 

Minnesota, furnishes first regiment in Civil War. . . . 207 

Minnesota. Early settlers devoted to education. . . . 507 

Provision for University \ 507 

University organized 508 

W. W. Folwell, the first president 508, 530, 531 

Number of students in University 508 

Early experiences of University hard 508 

Living from hand to mouth 508 

Temporizing policy necessary for years 509 

Planning for the future now possible 509 

Legislatures of recent years liberal 510 

The new campus 510 

Plans for the future of the campus by Cass Gil- 
bert 511 

Congratulations to the Regents 511 

Plea for utility rather than display in buildings . 512 

An able faculty 512 

Research work 512 



vi INDEX 

Minnesota — (Continued) 

The professor as a hired man 513 

Changes in education in last quarter of a century 513-516 

Changes in education anticipated 516 

Training for real work 517 

Getting rid of unnecessary things. 518 

Fitting for life 519 

A graduate department 519 

All universities not to teach the same things. ... 519 

Inverted pyramids 520 

Co-educational 520 

Prospects for women 521 

Correspondence schools 521 

Covering the whole state 522 

Examples of good done 523 

Things to be favored 524 

The standing of the University of Minnesota. . . 524 

Its graduates 525 

Judged by the Association of American Univer- 
sities 526 

Judged by the Carnegie Foundation. .......... 526 

Judged by the standards for professional work. . 526 
Its Graduate Department commended to Regents 

for additional support 527 

Private gifts to the University not frequent. ... 527 

Alice Shevlin Hall 527 

Building for men needed; what it would do. . . . 528 

Motives of new settlers in the state 529 

Leaders of thought 530 

J. S. Pillsbury 530 

W. W. Folwell 530, 531 

Chelsea J. Rockwood 531 

David L. Kiehle 531 

James T. Elwell 531 

John A. Johnson 532 

Change in presidency of the University 533 

Appreciation and thanks 533 



INDEX vii 

New York 374 

North and South 502 

North not likely to fight 488 

North not ready for the Civil War . 488, 489 

The rising of the North 491 

We did not know 491 

South ready for Civil War 488 

Ohio 439 

Ohio University 12 

Omnibus Bill 199 

Ordinance of 1 787 11 

Oregon 356 

Panama Canal 368 

Philippines 368 

Phillips, Wendell 339 

Pilgrims 30 

Pillsbury, John S 465-474, 530 

Piatt, Orville H 332 

Porto Rico 368 

Possibilities of Greater Whitman College 351 

Prairies and mountains 22 

Presidents of the United States good 322 

Washington to Buchanan 323, 324 

Lincoln to Roosevelt 324 

Princeton College 10 

Professions crowded 162 

Progress, American 376, 377 

Prosperity needed that is not accidental 166 

Races, mixed 373 

Real history cf country 3 

Rhett, Robert Barnwell on secession 486 

Roll of Yale presidents distinguished 9 

Roosevelt, Theodore 327-336 

Coal strike 328 

The square deal 329 

Sympathy with the people 330 

Cuba 330 



viii INDEX 

Roosevelt, Theodore — (Continued) 

Transportation 330, 331 

Peace 333, 334 

The South 335 

Conservation 335 

Irrigation, waterways, civil service 336 

The scholar in politics 455 

His brave leadership foretold 457 

Succeeds McKinley 463 

Estimate of 463 

Savage, Increase of wants of, first sign of enlighten- 
ment 388 

Schuyler, Eugene 3 

Secession 485, 486 

Senate, in 1850 

Why it is what it is 331 

What it will be, when people elect directly 332, 333 

Seward, William H 209, 449 

Slavery agitation 197 

Slaves, Teaching of, why forbidden 389 

South America, Trade with 165 

South Carolina 485 

South Carolina -College 443-445 

vSpeakers in America 82 

Speakers in Parliament 51-55 

Special training needed 163 

Specializing must not be carried too far 171-172 

Sumter, Fort 490 

Taft, William H 2 

Taney, Roger B 100 

Tariff, not cause of every ill 180 

Teaching and teachers 138, 245, 246, 251 

Texas, Results of annexation of . 322 

The Christian spirit 379 

The endless duty 361 

The Golden Rule 356 

The glory of our country 390 



INDEX ix 

The three states uniting for Christian education .... 348 

Theological controversy. 379 

Two interesting periods 204 

University, State, character of its education 15 

Not sectarian, partisan, nor agnostic 134 

What shall it be to the state? 416, 417 

Vision of the future 369 

War, of independence 34 

The Civil 201-204, 207 

Events summarized 492-499 

Soldiers of 503 

Great themes for orators during the Civil War. . 208 

Has our country been ennobled by it? 211-212 

Mexican 482 

Washington, George 283-300 

Washington, the state 355 

Webster, Daniel 71-75 

Webster, Noah 7 

West, The, inspiring 351 

Western Reserve College 13 

Whitman College 351 

White, Andrew D 3, 19 

Worcester, Joseph E 7 

Yale 

In Civil War 5 

In diplomacy 3 

In United States Senate 2 

In Constitutional Convention 1 

In public affairs 5 

Conservatism of 5 

Graduates of, as presidents and professors of 

other colleges 21 

Work in education 6 



